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ON 
THE 



FUQot\ol 
^urr\an Body • • • 



BY D. H. MANN, M.'D, 



AUTHOR OF 

MANN'S DIGEST FOR NEW YORK (LOG T.) 

AND 

JUVENILE TEMPERANCE CATECHISM, 
on Alcohol and Tobacco. 



brooklyn, n. y. 

Foster's Electric Print, 275 Court Street, 

1903 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 


Two Copies 


deceived f 


JUL 14 


1903 


Copyright 
CLA5S &s 


tntry 
l<{ fib 
XXe.No. 


COPY 


B. j 






COPYRIGHTED BY 

D. H. MANN, M. D. 

1903 



''.','' 






CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER 

I. Laws of Health, 

II. Laws of Health-Cont'd. Cleanliness, 

III. Alcohol, * - 

IV. Alcohol- — Generation of, - 

V. Alcohol on the Stomach, 

VI. Alcohol on the Brain and Nerves, 

VII. Alcohol on the Brain and Nerves-Cont 

VIII. Alcohol on the Mind, 

IX. Alcohol on the Heart, 

X. Alcohol on the Lungs, - 

XI. Alcohol on the Liver, 

XII. Alcohol on the Kidneys, 

XIII. Alcohol on the Blood, 
XIX. A Transparent Body, 

XV. Heredity of Inebriety, 

XVI. From Parent to Child, - 

XVII. Alcohol a Gay Deceivei , 

XVIII. Alcoholismus, -. - - 

XIX. Bodily Heat and Drainage, - 

XX. The Air we Breathe, 

XXI. Nature's Requisite for Recuperation, 

XXII. Is Alcohol Necessary in the Treatment 

of Disease ? 

XXIII. Alcohol in Medical Practice. - 

XXIV. Alcoholic Dosing. - 



PAGE 

7 
1 1 
16 
20 

23 
28 

d 39 

45 

53 

61 

66 

7i 

73 

81 

84 

90 

94 

99 

103 

108 

114 

119 
126 

130 



CHAPTER 




PAGE 


XXV. 


Know Thyself, 


134 


XXVI. 


An Hundred years-Nature's Laws, 


138 


XXVII. 


Total Abstinence Soldiers, 


141 


XXVIII. 


Rightly Born Children, 


142 


XXIX. 


Alcohol a Poison, not a Food, 


153 


XXX. 


Waste and Repair, 


159 


XXXI. 


Alcohol a Depressant, 


165 


XXXII. 


Alcohol opposes Force and Energy, 


170 


XXXIII. 


Beer Drinking, - 


175 


XXXIV. 


Beer Fattening, - - 


i8 2 


XXXV. 


Fibrin in the Blood, 


187 


XXXVI. 


Summary. ----- 

ADDENDUM. 


193 


XXXVII. 


The Tobacco Evil, - 


200 


XXXVIII. 


The Tobacco Evil — Continued. 


205 



PREFACE. 



Little more than two years since I was asked to contri- 
bute some short articles for the International Magazine 
along scientific lines, which I reluctently consented to 
do. I well knew that the effects of alcohol upon the 
human system had been so often written upon by scientists pio 
and con that it was not a new subject to treat. 

So with no thought of ever compiling them into book form I 
commenced writing short papers upon any phase of the great 
question which happened to be suggested to my mind from time 
to time without reference to connection, one with another from 
month to month. 

Consequently many repetitions occur, sometimes inadvert- 
antly and sometimes designedly. After a little more than a 
year's continuance I was, for several months, solicited by friends 
from different sections of the United States to put them in book 
form as soon as the series should be completed. 

Then I saw the lack of uniformity and the necessity for prun- 
ing down, adding to and re-arranging their order as well as that 
for revising some of the titles which were not sufficiently speci- 
fic for book publication, 

But, as in the first instance I complied, with some hesitancy 
and finally undertook the task. The readers of the magazine 
will see that I have added to some of the chapters while from 
others I have taken away, at the same time adding portions of 
a few of my former contributions to the New York Official 
Organ, thus presenting this little volume, in my view, upon one 
of the most important subjects that can be presented to the ris- 
ing generation. _ • 

The articles are all laconic in character, simple in phrase- 
ology, and as free from technical terms as was possible to write 
them. In the light of the foregoing narrated reasons, I must 
ask the indulgence of my readers, in the hope that the manv 



apparent irregularities, repetitions and imperfections in com- 
position and compilation may be overlooked. 

For the authenticity of the pathological and physiological 
facts presented, I am too thoroughly sustained by a vast army 
of renowned scientists to make it necessary for any apology or 
explanation. They speak for themselves and will stand upon 
their merits. 

Had I known at the onset that this form of presentation 
would be requested I should have been more elaborate in detail 
under each head. By a plain unvarnished statement of physic- 
logical, or biological references to the functional offices of the 
human organism and the pathological considerations, of the 
science and causes of disease, I have striven to impress my 
readers ; that their better judgment will lead them to an irresi- 
stable endorsement of the truths set forth. 

This little volume is not prepared as a text book for medical 
students, not being sufficiently elaborate for that purpose but 
as a reliable, consise compendium, so far as it goes, for the in- 
struction of the youth and young people of the present day, 
in the great underlying principles necessar)' to the preservation 
of our physical and mental perfection. 






ALCOHOL ON THE HUMAN BODY. 



CHAPTER I. 

LAWS OF HEALTH. 

The ancient sages and philosophers at Delphos in- 
scribed upon their communications "Know thyself.'' 

There is no study more interesting than that of our- 
selves and self preservation. In this is embodied our 
anatomical and physiological beautiful perfection as it 
comes from the hand of God, and all the hy genie in- 
fluences that go to preserve or destroy it, now and 
hereafter. 

Physically man is born in weakness, but if he live 
in harmony with the physical laws of the universe, 
his whole natural life is blessed, and his stay upon 
earth is a prosperous one. 

Intellectually man is born in utter ignorance, and 
all knowledge to him is nothing. And yet, under a 
proper observance of hygenic laws, he holds a sure re- 
lation with all the truths and wisdom which God has 
in store for the human race. But to obtain the key 
to these treasures the laws governing his moral and 
ph}-sical existence must be observed. 

It is not my intention to enter into particularizing 
in this chapter, but simply to generalize a few prac- 
tical thoughts as a sort of preparatory introduction to 
the subjects which are to follow on specific lines, 



8 ALCOHOL ON THE 

touching the particular effects of alcohol upon the 
human body. 

All the laws that preside over our physical natures 
are fraught with beautiful results, over which we are 
lost in admiration in the thought of the grandeur, 
sublimity and wisdom of the Creator. 

By the observance of these laws the muscular power 
of the human body often becomes most wonderful. 
There was once a Turkish porter who became so phy- 
sically developed that he could run at quite a rapid 
rate, carrying a weight of six hundred pounds. Had 
he been reared in ill ventilated apartments, on bad 
diet, with foul outdoor surroundings, and addicted to 
the use of alcoholic stimulents he would never have 
reached that degree of power. 

I recollect reading of an athlete who carried a three 
year old ox, weighing over a thousand pounds, more 
than forty yards, and subsequently killed it with one 
blow of his fist. He was Milo from Crotono, a pupil 
of the renowned phylosopher, Pythagoras. On one 
occasion, while in a school, the pillar which supported 
the roof gave way, when Milo sprang forward and 
held it until the teacher and pupils escaped. 

He ended his earthly career, in his old age, in a 
foolhardy manner, in trying to pull a tree up by the 
roots. He partially succeeded, and partly broke it in 
two, when one of his hands was caught in the cleft, 
his strength, in consequence of age, gave out, and be- 
ing alone, he died in that condition. 

Let us then stud}' the laws of physical health, and 
carefully look into the hygienic influencies surround- 
ing us, and like other animal natures, aye yes, and all 



HUMAN BODY. 9 

the vegetable creation too, thrive and strengthen, 
until like them, we shall in each succeeding genera- 
tion surpass our progenitors. 

Let us not defy the natural laws of life in regard to 
diet, exercise, cleanliness, pure air and proper bever- 
ages. 

Health is not a something that we add to our being, 
but it is one of the pre-requi«ites of life, natural to 
our existence, when protected according to the laws 
of nature. Man's organism is a self-sustaining piece 
of mechanism, under ordinary care, when not ushered 
into being with any hereditary taint. 

But when the laws of nature are trampled under 
foot, as when man gluttonizes himself, wastes his night 
hours in reveby, or sleeps in small, ill-ventilated a- 
partments, and indulges in a thousand and one other 
self-adopted practices which are simply intrusions up- 
on God's laws, health takes its leave. 

Over eating and drinking are two of the great causes 
of disease and depravity. If we put a horse in train- 
ing for the races he is allowed a very limited amount 
of feed only. So in diciplining the prize fighter, well 
selected food in somewhat limited quantities, without 
alcoholic stimulants is the positive requirement. 

The fact is, we can accustom ourselves to eating ex 
travagantly much, or surprisingly little, and possess 
better, vastly better health and intellect in the latter 
than in the former extreme. 

To prolong life we should look more to the wise 
dictations of nature. She inclines the young to retire 
and rise with the sun, but how long is that healthful 
practice indulged in ? Children are allowed for a time, 



10 ALCOHOL ON THg 

to follow that natural inclination, but fashion and cus- 
tom soon step in and thwart nature's plans. 

Those who lead the most natural and the least con- 
ventional lives live the longest and are the happiest. 
Nature says let young children run with bare hands, 
legs and feet ; but conventionalism steps in, and mam- 
ma says, "It wont do, it is not genteel and you will 
grow all out of shape, ' ' and she cages up the little feet 
in closely fitting shoes and stockings. Soon follow 
deformities in shape of corns, bunions and distorted 
toes. Oh, vain mother ! what a peacock after all. 

Let young children live less by rule and more by 
instinct in the matter of food and clothing, and we 
should soon have more ruddy, buxom lads and lassies 
than we find today, and fewer premature deaths. 

By that straight line of namby-pamby, figit}% self- 
preservation policy, life often becomes embittered, bur- 
densome and shortened. That is one extreme, while 
neglect, on the other hand, may prove equally perni- 
cious. Next to proper diet, pure air is one of the es- 
sentials to health and life. Oxygen is as necassary to 
animal life as is good, nutritious food, which we ob- 
tain solely by breathing fresh pure air. When we in- 
hale a breath of fresh air, the blood, as it circulates 
through the lungs, becomes re-oxygenated and re-vi- 
vified, and as we throw out a breath, vitiated gasses 
are exhaled, particularly carbonic acid gas, having 
been brought to the lungs through the veins. 

Long confinement in close apartments produces 
lassitude, headache, and a general bad feeling ; and 
often promotes diseases that sooner or later spring up 
in the various organs of the body. 






HUMAN BODY. 11 



CHAPTER II. 
Laws of Health. (Continued.) 

CLEANLINESS. 

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness" is an old proverb 
claimed by some to have originated with John Wesley. 
But historical writings bear no testimony to warrant 
such conclusion. On the other hand it seems to be 
well established that the saying is of very ancient date, 
and of Jewish origin. In the writings of the ancient 
Jews we can find the idea running in words like the 
following ; "Outward cleanliness is inward Piety," or 
"Outward cleanliness is inward Purit)^." 

But no one would attempt to prove that cleanliness 
is not one of the essential attributes to heath. The 
groom knows full well that the horse and the ox are 
in better physical condition and capable of greater en- 
durance when well gromed than when neglected and 
their skins allowed to become filthy. 

How often the horseman is heard to say that his 
horse requires less grain, and is capable of faster travel - 
when well "cleaned" than when neg 1 ected. 

So with all animals, from man down, cleanliness is 
essential to perfection of health. 

The Jews were so observant of health that no one 
picking over fruit, preparing pastry for the oven, or 
any food for the table, or while canning meats, was 
allowed to speak lest his breath might per chance be 
directed upon and contaminate it. 

I have a friend in Brooklyn who informs me that 



12 ALCOHOL ON THE 

she once had a servant girl, who had previously lived 
in a cultivated Jewish family, who had been taught 
to observe that rule strictly. 

The Jews undoubtedly acquired their high regard 
for extreme c 1 eanliness from observing and in some 
measure, imitating the ancient Egyptian Priests who 
reached the highest degree of perfection in their 
health giving practice, even going so far as to closely 
shaving all the hair from their heads and bodies every 
third day and always wearing neat and clean white 
robes. 

But cleanliness of the body is indispensable to good 
health. Why ? Because without it the pores of the 
skin become closed with a gurnmy , scaly-like substance. 
The waste matter of the body that should find egress 
through them, they being nature's open doorways for 
its discharge become closed, and disease is generated 
because this worse than effete matter is, like carbonic 
acid gas, poisonous to the whole system, unless allow- 
ed to pass off. 

Iyouis XIV. at a great gathering once caused a lad 
to be covered closely with gold foil to symbolize the 
golden age, in a great procession, which fitted so close- 
ly that the pores of the skin, became sealed and the 
young man died from its effects. 

Too much importance cannot be placed upon the 
law of nature which demands that the open pores of 
the skin, through which is carried off this poisonous 
perspiration, should not be closed up. It is estimated 
by some physiologists that of ever}' seven pounds of 
food and drink we take into the stomach, five pounds 
escape through the pores of the skin. 



HUMAN BODY. 13 

Thus how easy it is to realize why so many infla- 
mations and fevers are ushered in, by the perspiration 
becoming suddenly checked. 

It is estimated that a healthy person of ordinary 
size throws off by the skin in every 24 hours, 18 ounces 
of water, 5 drachms of solid matter, and 6^ drachms 
of carbonic Bcid. Then how essential that we keep 
nature's safety valves well open. With other excretory 
organs of the body, they act as scavengers. 

While the drinker is trespassing upon his physical 
organs b} 7 taking alcoholic poisons into his stomach, 
they have to be disposed of in some way or he would 
die, as alcohol is never assimilated or utelized in the 
human body, but must be thrown out in the form in 
which it entered — alcohol — so the scavengers have an 
important and arduous task to perform. 

The blood takes it up, the action of the heart sends 
it around through the system, while these scavengers 
are at work throwing it out through the sewer channels 
of the body, the lungs, the kidneys, the bowels, the 
pores of the skin, &c. 

But for these wise provisions the drinker would soon 
render up his final account. The exuding process in 
the skin assists the lungs greatly in throwing off the 
carbonic gas. 

Our manner of dress causes an accumulation of im- 
purity, and thus, without great care, the skin becomes 
unclean, and the functions of the pores interfered with. 

The masses pay too little regard to bathing, and often 
allow the clothing to become loaded with impurities, 
especially the underware, and thus many of the pores 
are hermetically sealed, and poisonous excretions are 



14 ALCOHOL ON THE 

prevented from passing out through those channels. 

That necessitates the care of them by other organs 
as the liver, bowels, lungs and kidneys, especially the 
latter, thus making an unnatural and unhealthful de- 
mand upon them. 

A great amount of heat is generated in the body by 
the combustion consequent upon the coming together 
of carbon, furnished by the food eaten, and oxygen 
taken into the lungs in breathing and circulated in the 
blood to every part of the body. 

This heat is particularly abundant on the surface of 
the body, to fortify it against sudden changes of tem- 
perature, so we find in the skin an almost complete net- 
work of little vessels, hence its warmth. 

If the blood be kept in vigorous circulation, it keeps 
the pores so warm that in ordinal changes, the cool 
.air does not close them. 

So whatever tends to promote a good free circulation 
of blcod in the skin, not only assits in keeping the 
pores in a healthy condition, but aids in warding off the 
evil effects of changes from heat to cold. Such action 
is best promoted by bathing and friction. 

In health the human bod}' maintains substantially 
the same temperature, in hot or cold weather, in hot 
or cold climates, in dead of winter or in the blaze of a 
noonday summer sun, at the equator or as near the 
North Pole as man has ever been. In any of these ex- 
tremes the internal temperature of the body remains 
the same, in a normal and healthy state of the system. 

In cold weather or on the application of cold to the 
body, the oxydation is increased to meet the demand, 
as much heat is required to warm the surface of the 



HUMAN BODY 15 

body, which becomes cooled in its contact with the air 
of all of which changes we are unconcious, and the 
circulation is accelerated in the interior of the body, 
to balance the decrease produced by the cold upon the 
outer surface. 

In heat, as in summer, the circulation becomes in- 
creased upon the surface, while nature decreases it in 
the internal body, by accelerating the respiration, opens 
the pores of the skin, and the sweat glands being stim- 
ulated by the heat, pour out their secretions upon the 
surface to become evaporated and cool it off. 

Thus as before indicated we see that in health we 
maintain the same degree of temperatnre under all cir- 
cumstances. So it is easy to see that bathing is essen- 
tial to health, cleanliness, beauty, strength and long 
life. It is one of the most salutary means of warding 
off and even removing congestions, allaying irritability 
of the nervous system, and equalizing the circulation 
when followed with friction by brisk rubbing. 

Still another benefit from the bath, a moral one, the 
man who resorts to it has a higher appreciation of him- 
self than has his scurfy, brown-skinned, eternally dry- 
backed neighbor of himself. The best known cosmetic 
is good pure soap and water. 

Again the strong connection between the purity of 
the body and the purity of the mind is wonderful. 
"Know ye not that this body is the temple of the liv- 
ing soul, and he who defiles this temple of the living 
soul, him, also will God destroy." 

An eminent New York divine once said to a noted 
physician of Philadelphia, "Doctor, I will tell you, 
after nearly forty years experience, as to the best 



16 ALCOHOL ON THE 

means of promoting Christian culture. I have made 
up my mind that Christianity begins in soap and 
water. ' ' 

Tooke, in his "life of Catharine," says, "In Russia, 
the baths are so generally used, that they have produc- 
ed a decided influence on the physical character of the 
nation." 

Fabricus tells us that there were no less than 856 
public baths in the capital of the Roman Empire, some 
of them sufficiently large to accommodate 1800 persons 
at one time. 



^» » < * 



CHAPTER III. 

ALCOHOL. 

Far back in the history of ancient times, fermented 
liquors were known. In Sacred History the first his- 
tory of the human race of which we have any know- 
ledge, we read that subsequent to the flood (which is 
generally believed to have fallen upon the earth 2.348 
years B. C), Noah became "a husbandman, and plant- 
ed a vineyard and he drank of the wine and was 
drunken." 

Homer, a profane writer, 900 B. C, informs us 
that the Egyptians drank liquor fermented from bran- 
dy. The date when vinous liquors were first submit- 
ted to distillation is not well established. A Eondon 
writer, in 1824, Morwood, was of the opinion that the 
Chinese were acquainted with the process long befere 



HUMAN BODY 17 

the rest of Asia, Africa and Europe had any knowledge 
of it. 

It is recorded of Albucasis, who is believed to have 
lived in the 12th century, that he instructed in the 
moans operandi, of distilling spirit from wine. But it 
is not likely that he was the first to subject fermented 
liquors to the process of distillation, as it was certainly 
known before his day. 

Raymond I<ully knew of the spirit of wine in the 
13th century and gave it the cognomen of aqua ardent, 
and was conversant with the process of depriving it of 
water by the use of carbonate of potash. 

In the early history of alcohol, it was used at first by 
ladies, in conjunction with a white powder of an ant- 
imonial nature for beautifying their faces and painting 
their eyebrows then named alcohol, from alkohl or al- 
cool, obtained by distilling certain vegetables contain- 
ing sacharine matter, (grape sugar.) 

During the reign of William and Mary, the maim- 
facture of spirits was recommended b\- the passage of 
a legal act to that end. That seems to have given the 
impetus to great intemperance among the people, and 
it was no uncommon thing to see posted in conspicu- 
ous places, placards put up by die retailers of spiritous 
liquors, notifying the people that they could get drunk 
for a penny and be provided with straw upon which to 
sober up. 

About the first account we have of its general use 
by the people was that among the Hungarian miners 
in the 15th century. Between 1700 and 1800 it was 
in quite general use as a cordial among the English 
soldiers. From those times it spread rapidly over the 



18 ALCOHOL ON THE 

civilized portions of the globe. In Ireland, up to the 
time of the reign of Henry VII. , brandy was not known 
but soon after, it was introduced there, and its effects 
were so direful that the Government passed a prohibi- 
tory law against its manufacture. 

When the English soldiers became acquainted with 
it they first used it under the delusion that it was a 
panacea against all ills, and that it made the soldiers 
fearless on the battle field. 

So great has been its destructive influence all along 
its pathway that arithmetical calculations are inade- 
quate for the tabulating of a tithe of its deadly and 
damning work. 

Could the graves of its myriads of victems be called 
to open and report, could our alms houses and prisons 
speak out the sad tale of woe, and could hell itself 
open to us the recorded pages of its ghastly history 
and let the world hear the recital, methinks the present 
and the coming generations would place an eternal seal 
of condemnation and prohibition upon its infernal ra- 
vages and stamp it forever out of existence. It is 
surely an invention of the evil imp of darknes him- 
self. 

'"There's no man so hates his fellow man ; 

It is the work of hell ; 
None but the devil ever thought of such a plan, 

So demon-like, so fell." 

Every intelligent, honest chemist will tell you that 
alcohol is an irritant narcotic poison, poisonous in its 
effects to a greater or less extent even in small doses. 
It is the inebriating principle in all intoxicating drinks. 

Then is it any wonder that the body, brain and 



HUMAN BODY; 19 

mind should be injured, dwarfed and in many in- 
stances ruined by the habitual use of such a drastic 
poison ? 

Whenever an}- of these drinks are taken into the 
stomach the alcohol commences its evil mischief and 
the medical man has frequent opportunities in post- 
mortem examinations to see the inflamed, irritated and 
poisoned condition of the stomach, liver, spleen, kid- 
ney's, heart, brain and other organs. Hospital practice 
has established the fact that 60 per cent, of the skin 
diseases there met are induced by alcoholic drinks. 

The congested state of the common drunkard's nose 
is an illustration of the susceptibility of the skin to its 
damaging effects. Gout and rheumatism are, to say 
the least, very much increased by it, and often, very 
often, it is the sole cause of those maladies. 

Dr. Norman Kerr, says that out of 1.561 cases of 
gout which have come under his observation, but one 
was in the person of non alcoholic drinker, and that 
one inherited it. 

The stomach is one of the first organs to surfer from 
its use, and the dyspeptic symptoms of the drinkers 
have been talked in our hearing ever since we were 
born. 

The heart, liver and kidneys of the drinker, if not 
greatly diseased, are seldome found in a normal or 
health}- condition. They often load up with a fatty 
deposit extending even in among their muscular fibers 
becoming weakened and emfeebled, especially in beer 
drinkers, known as fatty degeneration of those organs. 

The lungs afford the greatest medium for the escape 
of alcohol from the body and often suffer greatly for 



ZO ALCOHOL ON THE 

performing that function, for alcohol is never assimi- 
lated, never utelized, but makes its escape through the 
lungs and other scavengers of the body. So we find 
congestion, bronchitis, laryigitis and consumption 
often actually produced by alcoholic drinks. 

But among the worst eifects of all are those upon 
the brain and nervous system under which circum- 
stances the drinker is not the sufferer, but all who are in 
any way connected with him have to share some of its 
evil consequences in one way or another. 

Now the seat of intelligence is trespassed upon, and 
the drinker gradually robbed of his manhood. 

Alcohol often dethrones reason and blunts precep- 
tive faculties, not infrequently leading to paralysis, 
epilepsy and insanity and other kindred maladies often 
handed down from one generation to another, the 
most terrible of all results, the most damable of all in- 
heritancies. 

So science is daily speaking to us in thunder tones, 
warning us that alcohol is a damage not a help to us, 
not a friend but an enemy in diguise like a thief in the 
night, stealing health, reason and wealth from the 
drinker. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ALCOHOL, — GENERALIZATION OF. 

Alcohol is a substance nowhere to be found in nature, 
but obtained only by man's evil ingenuity in bringing 
about vinous fermentation, and that rotting process 



HUMAN BODY 21 

producing glucose or grape sugar from grains and 
fruits, from which substance alone can alcohol be ob- 
tained. 

No healty constitution requires it, but on the con- 
trary it is always detrimental in health, and yet it is a 
deplorable fact that in some form or other alcohol has 
been used as a drink for centuries past, which fact is 
one of the prominent arguments in its favor advanced 
by its advocates. 

But on the other hand they never tell us how fear- 
fully human longevity has been lessened by its use, 
that in olden times men lived hundreds of years, while 
to-day the average duration of human life is only about 
thirty years, and that alcoholics have played a promi- 
nent part in its reduction. 

The distillation of spirits from wines was not known 
until in the eleventh century, and \v r as called "Spirits 
of Wine." So called because it was found to be an 
intoxicant, which was thought to be a spirit. 

When taken into the stomach it always inflames 
that organ more or less according to the amount taken. 

It weakens the blood vessels, overtaxes the heart 
incites diseases of the kidneys, liver, spleen, lungs, 
brain and leaves its damaging marks upon every organ 
or fiber of the body with which it comes in contract. 

Professor Sartin of St. John's Hospital, London, says, 
"It is indeed a mocker. It promises us strength and 
mocks us with weakness. It promises us endurance 
and mocks us with faintness. It promises us substance 
and mocks us with shadow. It promises us heat, and 
mocks with cold. It promises us with moisture, and 
robs us of the moisture we already possess. It prom- 



22 ALCOHOL ON THE 

ises us life, and mocks us .with premature death. It 
promises us intelligence and wit, and mocks us with 
confusion. It dazzles us with visions of happiness, and 
plunges us into the depths of despair. ' ' 

Truthfully might the lerned Professor have added, 
that under its use men become sickened and dwarfed, 
enfeebled in mind, corrupted in morals, their children 
imbecile, and their physical existence or structure 
only the woof of one desease woven into the warp of 
another, some mute, some blind, some deaf and some 
idiotic. 

There are many other physiological and pathologi- 
cal changes produced in the system by the use of alco- 
holics of which I shall speak only in a generalizing 
way in this chapter. 

It robs the drinker of his vital heat, it vitiates the 
blood, it inflames the stomach, it weakens the blood ves- 
sels and redens the face, irritates the lining membrane 
of the mouth, throat, lungs, and the whole alimentary 
canal, it destroys the complexion, it mystifies the judg- 
ment, paralizes the will and by its changing effects 
upon the brain it dazzles the mind with visions of hap- 
piness and wealth, but plunges the consumer into des- 
pair and poverty. 

It stamps the whole system with diseases, and trans- 
mits it to innocent posterity, thus visiting the sins of 
the fathers and mothers fearfully upon the innocent 
children. 

It is both a brain and body poison, and in short it is 
a general der anger of the whole system. 

Its specific effects upon particular organs of the 
body will be more fully exemplified in the succeeding 
chapters. 



DMGMMSOFTOE STOMACHUS VARIOUS CONDITIONS 




Healthful 






Moderate Drinking 



Ulcerous. 



Drunkards 




After a long Debauch 




Death. byD elinum Tremens. 



HUMAN BODY 23 

CHAPTER V. 

ALCOHOL ON THE STOMACH. 

Iii a cursory view of the human bod}' we have little 
conception of its intricacy and its perfected mech- 
anism. Man, the most wonderful of God's created 
beings and king over all, is surprisingly constituted 
and astonishingly endowed, and presents study for 
scientists and will continue to through all coming ages. 

To obtain a clear idea of the physiological effects of 
alcohol on the human system, a little at least should 
be known of the anatomical structure and functional 
offices of its important organs, particularly of the great, 
essential and much abused one, the stomach. 

That is a large hollow sack with a beautifully arran- 
ged anatomical construction for the performance of its 
important offices. It is composed of an internal mem- 
brane called the mucous or villous coat, mucous be- 
cause it secretes a fluid known by that name, or villous 
because its inner surface is thickly studded with min- 
ute villi resembling the nap on velvet. 

Next, three distinct layers of muscular fibres over- 
laying each other, running in opposite directions, long- 
itudinally, obliquuely and transversely, and lastly a 
membranous covering over all, denominated its serous 
coat because it secretes serum for the prevention of 
irritation in its contact with the intestines, diaphram, 
peritoneum etc. 

The inner or mucous coat has some very important 
functions to perform in the great economy of life. 

To promote or assist the process of digestion, it sec- 



24 ALCOHOL ON THE 

retes or throws out from the little villi a fluid denomi- 
nated, gastric juice, one of its component parts being 
pepsin, from the word peptein, to digest, which per- 
forms the office of a ferment to produce certain changes 
for the dissolution of food. 

The quantity of gastric juice secreted by a healthy 
adult is estimated from five to twelve pouuds per day, 
although in some instances it reaches a still greater a- 
mount. These lfttle secreting villi or tubes are really 
minute glands bound together in a mass over the sur- 
face of the membrane by a stringy fibrous material 
denominated by anatomists, connective tissue. 

Thus the stomach is also called a glandular sac. 

The exudation of the gastric juice is invited or 
brought out by the titillation or contact of substances 
taken into the stomach. Upon their introduction the 
secretion or oozing out takes place in manner similar 
to that of perspiration from the skin, assuming at 
times the form of drops and even little streamlets. 

The amount secreted, much or little, is always in 
keeping with the amount of food to be digested. 

The gastric j uice together with the mucous also sec- 
reted, mingles with the food substance received into 
the sack and performs the primary preparatory dissol- 
ving process for digestion, the latter, however, not be- 
ing completed until the dissolved mass passes out from 
the stomach into the duodenum or first intestine, where 
it receives bile from the gall-bladder supplied by the 
liver, and pancreatic juice from the pancreas, the as- 
sistance of which completes the process of digestion. 

The office of the triform muscular arrangement of 
the stomach is to contract and relax it alternate^ in 



HUMAN BODY. 25 

every possible direction, which is done consecutively 
when containing food, in order to produce a churning - 
like operation to facilitate the mixing of the juice sec- 
reted, with the food and hasten its liquefaction. 

After the compeletion of the digestive process the 
nutritive portion of the mass, the chyle, is separated 
and taken up by the absorbents and through the liver 
and blood vessels is carried to all parts of the body and 
deposited for the building up or repairing of its chang- 
ing and decaying material. 

Whenever alcohol is in the stomach in conjunction 
with food it prevents or retards digestion by precip- 
itating the pepsin, until it, (the alcohol) passes out 
and the pepsin is re-dissolved or a new suppl}- is sec- 
reted with the gastric juice. 

So the effects of alcoholics upon the stomach are not 
founded upon speculative immagination, but upon 
scientific facts arrived at from ocular demonstrations, 
symptomatic changes, and the revelations in post mort- 
em investigations. 

While alcohol will dissolve many of the gums, re- 
sins &c. it will not digest food. Whenever the drinker 
takes any of the alcoholic beverages into his stomach 
he interferes with God's plans for his nourishment 
health and preservation. 

The direct effects of alcohol upon the stomach were 
very clearly demonstrated by the long continued ex- 
periments of Dr. Beaumont upon Alexis St, Martin, 
the Canadian boy who had an opening in his stomach 
by the accidental discharge of a musket in 1822, the 
experiments continuing for a long series of months, 
then taken up along the same lines by Dr. Sewel of 



26 ALCOHOL ON THE 

Washington, all the results being subsequently veri- 
fied by like experiments upon an Ethiopian peasant 
girl, Catharine Cute, who by an accident also had an 
artificial opening in her stomach. 

The first apparent effect following the introduction 
of alcohol into the organ is that of an irritant .shown 
by redness of* the lining membrane and enlargement 
of the myriads of little blood vessels, which, in their 
natural state are so minute as not to be visible to the 
naked eye, now so weakened and distended as to be 
plainly seen. 

Farther along by a still greater exhibition of the same 
effect, is the appearance of large bluish patches show- 
ing an enfeebled state of the vessels and impaired state 
of the blood, not infrequenth r leading on to actual ul- 
ceration. 

In the confirmed drinker this weakening is often 
carried on to the extent of producing mania a pot?/, 
or delerium tremens, when the vessels are so weak 
that the blood exudes from them ; and becomes parti- 
ally digested it is ejected by the process of vomiting 
known as "black vomit." 

Another very serious effect upon the stomach, is 
softening of its mucous or lining membrane often ac- 
companied with ulceration, resembling in appearance 
the apthous sore mouth of a child in scarlet fever. 

Again sometimes a cancerous disease is produced, 
leading to much suffering and death. The writer in 
his own practice has met with a case of each of the 
last two described, and he was permitted an autopsy 
in each case, w T hich verified the diagnosis in both in- 
stances. Yet neither was in the person of a drunkard. 





/•2|X THE CANCEROUS 
^55pD STOMAGH. 


JTjBI -^Fj^k 







HUMAN BODY. 27 

but each one was a daily moderate drinker, and the 
latter was a woman living on a farm four miles from 
the nearest village. Her drinking habit was cultivat- 
ed by the daily use of wine, until the abused stomach 
demanded something stronger to produce the accustom- 
ed effect upon its little nerves which had become part- 
ially paralyzed. 

Among the first functional disturbances experienced 
by the drinker in such cases is a mucom catarrh of the 
stomach, which,attacks nearly all drinkers to a greater 
or less extent, ushered in by morning thirst, a dry, 
clammy mouth and often after the first morning dram 
the stomach rebels and vomiting ensues, ejecting a 
glairy, ropy muco-fluid. This sometimes supervenes 
even before anything is taken into the stomach in the 
morning, or following a draught of water. It is al- 
ways succeeded by more or less inflammation, becom- 
ing chronic. 

And yet the drinker thinks he must resort to fre- 
quent potations of alcoholics to assist the tired stomach 
in its task. Well, it does help it out, and helps the 
drinker out too, for he is generally out of the world 
prematurely. 

The digestive process is one of the most important 
functions in the human economy. A good operative 
stomach is as essential to life, health and happiness as 
is a good working engine to the speed of a railway 
train. 

Whatever deranges the functions of the stomach in- 
terferes with the whole workings of the human organ- 
ism. 

A vigorous stomach is indispensable to good health, 



28 ALCOHOL ON THE 

muscular strength and mental vigor. Yet how often 
this derangement is a self produced one, brought on by 
indulgence in the use of those things which all reason 
and nature teach us is wrong, but persisted in, in spite 
of the light and knowledge of the age, simply to grat- 
ify a morbid appetite, and that generally a cultivated 
one. 

One of the terrible afflictions of the drinker is known 
as alcoholic dyspepsia which sends him at an early 
hour, with unsteady muscles and trembling limbs, to 
the saloon for his morning dram to excite to action his 
worn-out stomach, to create a sensation which he de- 
ludedly denominates, appetite. A morbid sensation. 

^^^^^ 



CHAPTER VI. 

ALCOHOL ON THE BRAIN AND NERVES. 

How often and aptly physiologists quote from 
Cassio's exclamation in Othello — Shakespeare: "O, 
God, that men should put an enemy into their mouths 
to steal away their brains ! That we should, with J03-, 
revel, pleasure and applause, transform ourselves into 
beasts ! To be now a sensible man, and by-and-by a 
fool, and presently a beast ! O, strange ! every in- 
ordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is the 
devil." 

A practical observer can , at a glance at a man under 
the influence of alcoholics, determine to a certainty 
just how far his brain is under the immediate damag- 
ing effects of the drug. 



HUMAN BODY 29 

If he be noisy, boisterous, songful, glib, rich with- 
out money, hilarious, or proclaiming his great wis- 
dom, or atheltic powers, the observer knows that the 
upper and greater mass of the brain, the cerebrum, is 
involved, as that is the seat of judgment or moral and 
intellectual faculties, all of which are now manifestly 
weakened and thrown into discord. Next we see the 
victim unsteady, staggering, tottering and falling. It 
is now patent the cerebellum, or lower portion of the 
great mental organ, the brain, called its base, is invol- 
ved in the damage, as there is centered the controll- 
ing net ve influence over the muscular movements of the 
body. But at length the vanquished subject is on his 
back with deep, heavy, sonorous breathing, when it is 
at once apparent that the medulla oblongata or head 
of the spinal marrow is embraced -in the poisonous 
grasp, and respiration is impaired, from the temporary 
paralysis of the nerves which preside over the muscles 
of respiration . 

One reason for the silliness in some men on a drunk- 
en spree, and in others for the rage, ugliness and 
quarrelsomeness, is that the brain is poisoned, its 
albumen hardened, its blood vessels paralyzed and con- 
gested, thus unbalancing the mind, of which the 
brain is the temple. 

It is a well established physiological fact that alco- 
hol scars the brain, in that it enlarges the cells of the 
brain tissues, and from that enlarged state they never 
resume their former condition, but remain as a latent 
tinder box, read}' to ignite at the touch of the first 
spark. 

The reformed often feels, after a time, that he is 



80 ALCOHOL ON THE 

safe, having conquered his o 1 d enemy, but one drink 
now will show him that he is not his own master, but 
is again a slave to the old appetite. What a price for 
a drink. 

So we see in this deranging process, alcohol first 
irritates and disturbs equilibrium, then poisons and 
weakens the vaso motor nerve system, and finally prc- 
duces almost deadly sedation, and quite often so. Un- 
der such circumstances can it be possible that men 
can long retain their normal soundness of mind ? Can 
they be stable thinkers ? Yet the}' often prove them- 
selves so by the frequency of their lodgings under the 
manger. 

To maintain its equilibrium, the brain must be sup- 
plied with blood free from any irritant poison, well 
oxygenated, which cannot be when alcohol is taken 
into the system. The great mass of the blood is 
water, and nature demurs to the introduction of any 
other fluid, as it is superfluous and must be expelled. 

Doubly objectionable then is an irritant like alcohol, 
which can do nothing but mischief. It is self-evident 
that the habitual use of alcoholics disturbs and weak- 
ens nutrition of the brain substance and the general 
nervous system. 

While the brain surfers, other organs dependant up- 
on it for nerve force, suffer with it in the punishment. 
For instance, it is no uncommon experience to meet 
an habitual drinker with drunkard's blindness, tech- 
nically known as Amblyopia Potatorum, caused by 
want of nourishment for the optic nerve, causing, 
primarily, a mist or cloudy appearance before the eyes, 
rendering objects indistinct, which often increases to 



HUMAN BODY. 31 

the degree of blindness. The writer has in mind sev- 
eral cases which have come under his observation- 

Then to the drinker let me say, stop, think, ponder 
and weigh the consequences, then turn to the right 
and keep in the middle of the road. 

It is a clearly proven fact that the habitual use of 
alcohol as a beverage cannot be indulged in even in 
very small quantities without injury to some of the 
bodily organism which will manifest itself sooner or 
later. 

Some of the parts which are injured even by small 
doses of alcohol, are the general nervous system, part- 
icularly those nerves so closely connected with the 
brain supplying the organs of hearing, of sight, of 
taste, of smelling, etc- Observations and new ex 
periments by scientists are constantly confirming these 
truths. 

Learned medical men all along down the ages have 
raised their warning voices against its use as a bever- 
age, even before the Christian era and in every cent- 
ury since. 

No well informed phvsician will for a moment (un- 
less he has become a slave to the habit) contend that a 
man in ordinary health is in any way benefited by its 
use any more than dumb animals would be. Nor will 
it in an}' way accelerate the amount of mental or man- 
ual labors. 

Read what the eminent surgeon, Sir Henry Thomp- 
son, once said : ''There is no single habit in this 
country which so much tends to deteriorate the quali- 
ties of the race, and so much disqualifies it for end- 
urance in that competition which in the nature of 



32 ALCOHOL ON THE 

things must exist." As a rule the drinker's judge- 
ment is impaired, thus his appetite is uncont oled a:d 
drink seems to be the god he worships and too often 
it predetermines his own physical condition and that 
of his children. 

Reason, judgment, conscience, pride, self-respect, 
regard for loved ones and a general good name are all 
subordinated for that god, appetite. Pain, disease, 
debility, and brevity of life staring him in the face at 
every step in his dissipated career seems to be no bar- 
rier in the way of the drunkard's appetite, regardless 
of the value of a vigorous stomach, pure blood, healthy 
nerves, a clear mind and sound judgment. 

Why is it that the majority of drinking men are not 
as keen of perception as the abstainer ? 

Because of the enlarged brain cells above mentioned. 
Alcohol in the brain, that great "Dome of thought and 
palace of the soul," in its pranks among the nerves 
and tissues of that organ is as ruthless as the paw of 
a Wall street bear. 

The physical benefit of alcohol to a healthy man is 
about as difficult to find as the jaw to the mouth of a 
volcano or the face to the head of a river. 

Strange that with such glaring facts before us warn- 
ing us of the danger of alcoholic indulgence, it has so 
many devotees. 

But it is only another of the surprising evidences 
that different people arrive at different conclusions 
from the same line of facts before them , j ust as diverse 
opinions are formed of a picture when viewed by two 
different individuals. An ardst once showed a gentle- 
man a painting he had just finished. The gentleman 



HUMAN BODY 33 

said, "My good Sir, you paint birds beautifully, you 
should never paint anything else than birds, those ost- 
riches are most life-like." 

The distinguished artist turned to him saying, 
"These are not ostriches, they are angels." 

If a man is to be governed by appetite, the whole 
physical system will become dwarfed and wrecked. 
Think for a moment what mankind would become if 
freed from the early infirmities and depleted constitu- 
tions consequent upon our international indulgencies 
dictated by appetites and passions, handed down 
through the ancestral line, taking new additions in 
their course, which, like the mountain glacier, willby- 
and-by terminate in one tremendous avalanche and 
crash from its own accumulated weight. 

Providence has ordered that all animal natures shall 
thrive, improve, strengthen and surpass their ancestors. 
But man, by yielding to appetites and passions thwarts 
God's primary designs and dwarfs his own kind. 

How careful he is to improve the stock of his dumb 
animals by keeping them up to the demands of nature's 
wise laws. So, too, have we improved the vegetable 
kingdom, almost beyond conception, and still we 
strive on for greater perfection. But man alone of all 
the earth sinks below his nature by yielding to ap- 
petites and passions. 

The first apparent effects of alcoholics upon the hu- 
man economy are manifest upon the nervous system, 
composed of the brain and spinal marrow with the 
nerves ramifying out from them. 

Much that would be useful to a student in physiol- 
ogy might profitably be noted of the minute and deli- 



34 ALCGHOL ON THE 

cate construction of these organs, which would not be 
so interesting to the general readers of a magazine, 
thus my excuse for generalizing. 

The mental faculties are fixed or located in the brain 
which nature has carefully enveloped or inclosed in a 
delicate^ constructed membrane denominated the pia 
mater or the soft mother of the brain, which is not 
simply a cover to its exterior but dips down into or 
between all its convolutions or folds, with its net work 
of blood vessels through which is a constant and co- 
pious flow of blood. Enclosing all this is another 
membrane for protection, thick and tough, compara- 
tively, called the dura mater or hard mother of the 
brain, which serves as the lining to the skull. 

The cerebrum or upper and greater mass of the brain 
is divided into two distinct hemispheres or lobes, 
which really constitute a double brain, which is the 
seat of the intellectual faculties, the thinking and re- 
asoning center. Below this, in the base or bottom of 
the skull is another and all-important portion of the 
brain denominated the cerebellum, about the size of a 
small tea cup, somewhat flattened. This is the head- 
quarters of the commands for muscular movements, 
and governs locomotion and all the voluntary muscles. 

Next is the spinal cord, the head of which is known 
as the medulla oblongata, from these the great nervous 
system has its origin, which is divided into three class- 
es, the spinal, consisting of 3 1 pairs, running from the 
spinal cord through openings provided for them in the 
bones of the spinal column to various parts of the 
body ; the cranial, subdivided into 12 pairs which have 
their origin in the medulla oblongata, and the cerebel- 



HUMAN BODY 35 

turn, running in their regular order to the nose, eyes, 
face, ears, tongue, throat, lungs and stomach, with a 
single branch extending to the heart. The sympath- 
etic or nerves of organic life, a sort of ganglionic ner- 
vous chain running out from either side of the spine, 
with their ramifications distributed to the chest and 
abdomen. The nerves arising from the right side of 
the brain cross over as they pass from the medulla ob- 
longata to the left side of the body, and those from the 
left in their origin pass over in like manner to the 
right side. Thus an) 7 disturbance in one-half of the 
brain sufficient to produce paralysis, manifests itself 
in the opposite side of the bod) 7 . 

Strange as it may seem, this delicate pultaceous 
mass of matter denominated the brain, the seat of 
thought, reason and sensation, through its messengers, 
the nerves, is not itself in the least degree sensitive to 
touch or injury. It may be touched, cut or punctur- 
ed without pain. 

One of the first effects of alcoholics is to paralyze 
the nerves that control the minute blood vessels, thus 
allowing an abnormal amount of blood to pass through 
them, and with deleterious velocity. Thus the red 
flag of danger that the drunkard constantly exhibits 
in his eyes, nose and face. All this is weakening, not 
strengthening, and its exhilarating influence is of 
limited duration, always followed by more or less de- 
pression, leaving the system worse for the wear and 
tear of the operation. Next the spinal cord is affect- 
ed, then the muscular system by loss of power to a 
greater or less degree. 

The cerebrum becomes affected, mental power dimi- 



36 ALCOHOL ON THE 

uished, blunted and demoralized, judgment weakened, 
reason robbed, conversation running riot and often 
meaningless, the animal instincts come to the front 
and assert themselves and the drinker is often given 
over to vileness, meanness and lust, and frequently to 
brutality without the slightest provocation. 

If imbibation be continued much beyond this period, 
temporary paralysis of the brain and spinal marrow 
supervenes sufficiently to drop the poor victim into 
stupor and unconsciousness, which would be a blessed 
state if it were one of the earlier instead of the latter 
results, so far as others than the drinker are concern- 
ed, at least. 

Now the whole system is in an uproar, which requi- 
res days of abstinence for recuperation, and then a lat- 
ent spark is likely to linger which is ready to ignite 
and burst into a blaze at any moment at the touch of 
strong drink again. 

Tiuly the way of the transgressor is hard, for man 
has no moral right to thus trespass upon his physical 
frame, the temple of the human soul. 

And yet some would have us believe that this poison, 
alcohol, is a good creature of God and acts upon man 
as a sustenance. 

Nature has taught us that the elements of true, nat- 
ural, healthful, supporting and tissue-building food 
properties are furnished us in milk. The nursling is 
put upon its use from its first hour of existence as 
nature's true preservative. No alcohol is furnished 
in its make-up, but its composition is water, albumen, 
sugar, butter and salts. 

Food is any substance, which on being introduced 



HUMAN BODY 37 

into the living economy is assimilated, oxydized, gen- 
erating heat and sustenance for the body and giving it 
force, all of which are necessary for animal life with- 
out injury thereto. As shown in former articles, al- 
cohol does not build up or repair tissue nor does it 
produce bodily warmth, but its effects are quite the re- 
verse, thus it is totally discarded from the supplies of 
Arctic explorers as extremely dangerous when used 
on those expeditions, and explorers, as Dr. Nansen, 
Livingstone, and others, religiously eliminated all al- 
coholics from their supplies, thereby husbanding the 
vitality and muscular force of their men. 

Nor is it necessary as a medicine. Since 1873 
14,000 patients have been treated almost entirely with- 
out alcoholics in the London Temperance Hospital, 
even tinctures were eliminated which had been pre- 
pared with alcohol, they being supplanted with watery 
infusions, with unprecedented results, which led Dr. 
B. W. Richardson, one of its learned staff, to say, in 
1879, "Sick people have no more need of wine, beer 
or spirits than healthy people." 

Man alone, though he may be possessed of the devil, 
is responsible for the moral, physical and financial in- 
roads which intoxicating liquors have made and are 
making. The devil with all his emissaries could not 
make one drunkard if man did not permit himself to 
be duped by his Satanic wiliness. The tempter, the 
drunkard-maker, is abroad in the land and the question 
is, how can he be silenced and the tempted saved ? 

So long as drunkard-makers are licensed to carry on 
their nefarious business just so long will there be new 
drunkards in the land. What then is the remedy ? 



38 ALCOHOL ON THE 

Legal prohibition. For every lordly or bloated 
saloonist there are scores of Lazaruses, houseless, 
homeless and friendless, with nothing but hovels for 
shelters. For every saloon there are hosts of cor- 
responding pictures of despair, orphans without 
friends, mothers and children without food. All from 
the plague infected spots licensed and protected by 
law to do their deadly and damning work scattering 
the germs of disease and death as the winds scatter 
the leaves of autumn, leading to the physical destruc- 
tion of the body and moral ruin of the soul. 

The thought of the thousands who have acquired 
the fatal appetite at the licensed bar, of the drunkards 
confirmed, of families wrecked, of sons and daughters 
ruined, of societies corrupted by the demoniacal seeds 
sown in these pitfalls of the devil, legalized, protected, 
petted and perpetuated by the laws of our boasted 
Christian land, defacing God's image in man and put- 
ting the imprint of the devil's counterfeit stamp upon 
rum's unfortunate victims, dethroning their reason, 
sapping their vitality and unbalancing their brains al- 
most sickens one of human nature. 

Such legacies are Satanic in influence and damnable 
in practice. Such silent scorpionic bequests of the 
drinker to his offspring will embitter his cup of eternal 
vengeance. 

If man lives in harmony with the physical laws of 
nature God will bless his efforts and fill his heart with 
joy ; but woe betide him who bids them defiance or 
attempts to trample them under foot by obeying the 
fiery impulses of appetite and passions. 

Then let us so live that we may fully enjoy the 



HUMAN BODY 39 

blessings of life in this beautiful world of ours with its 
mountain steeps and its valley planes, its rippling 
brooks and its roaring cataracts, its sunshines and its 
storms, its flowers, its fruits and its sweet singing 
birds, all in harmony with God's natural laws, in one 
grand triumphant march to final victor}*, masters of 
themselves.* 



CHAPTER VII. 
alcohol on the BRAix and nerves. — (Continued) 

The brain is a great telegraphic center, and the body 
in many respects is very like the railway arrange- 
ments with its telegraphic appliances. The brain is 
the general office, the spinal cord is its telegraphic 
wire, sending out innumerable ramifications of little 
nerve fibers, some of sensation and some of motion to 
all parts of the body . 

On the railway lines of the world each has a head 
office from which to direct the movements of its almost 
innumerable number of trains, and a perfect schedule 
for their departure and arrival from and to different 
points. In each office there is a telegraphic commun- 
ication with all the others of the company, especiallv 
with the head office from which the despatcher sends 
out his orders. All is harmony and every thing moves 
with wonderful regularity. 

But suppose a drunken dispatcher were put in charge, 
*See Chapter 22. 



40 ALCOHOL ON THE 

and by his destructive hand trains were started in op- 
posite directions on the same track, at the same time, 
in the same section, soon there would occur an appal- 
ling disaster. On another line he might send out a 
wildcat engine on the track of an incoming express 
train, and soon another crash would follow. All be- 
cause of rum. 

In many respects the human body resembles, in its 
arrangements, the railway with its magnetic telegraphic 
appliances. 

Like the telegraphic institutions, each organ of the 
body has its own private station and its own electric 
currents, all being governed by the general office in 
the brain. It often happens that some organ becomes 
partially incapacitated by disease or injury, when 
some sympathetic fiber is called upon to take up its 
work until damages are repaired. 

There is nothing in nature more perfect than this 
most wonderful electric mechanism of the brain and 
nervous system. 

The nervous system in the human body serves two 
great objects, having two different and equally import- 
ant structures or appliances for the furtherance of 
their functional duties. 

These beautiful little human telegraphic wires, this 
nervous ramification for electric currents have two 
functions in this telegraphic system. One is to carry 
commands from the brain to promote motive power in 
the limbs, or in any portion of the body, in answer to 
demands of the will, etc. The other to convey sensa- 
tions to the brain from the whole surface of the skin. 

All information is sent to the brain, and there clas- 



HUMAN BODY. 41 

sified into different heads according to its nature, and 
thus the different orders are sent out to the several 
departments of the body. 

The cars of life on the human railways of our bodies 
are governed by this beautiful and perfect electric net- 
work. How insane for a man to trespass upon it in 
such a way that wildcat trains are let loose to run, re- 
gardless of nature's regulated plans, as is the case 
when these electric batteries and connecting nerve 
wires are disabled as they are when alcohol is taken 
into the system which hardens the albumen and para- 
lyzes them, disabling in their functional responsibilites. 

The drinker's first drams unman the cerebrum, or 
main brain, derange his faculties, lessen his judgment, 
and the first wildcat train is let loose, and he sings, 
laughs, swears and often becomes pugilistic. 

He drinks on and the base of the brain, the cere- 
bellum is thrown into discord, he staggers and swag- 
gers, and a disabled engine is running without a guid- 
ing hand; he falls to the gutter and the engine is off 
the track, upset upon its side. 

Now the meduUa oblongata, or head of the spinal 
marrow is out of order, and as that presides over the 
powers of respiration the poor unfortunate lies half 
alive only, with a florid face, diffused eyes and a low, 
slow gutteral breathing; inspirations suppressed to an 
alarming degree. He gasps, he dies, asphyxiated as 
if poisoned by opium or chloroform. 

When alcohol is taken into the stomach it is an 
irritating, poisoning intruder along this network of 
electric batteries and wires, and the whole machinery 
is thrown into confusion; the drinker often running 



42 ALCOHOL ON THE 

off the track and is wrecked because of the wires being 
paralyzed and down, so to speak, and sometimes as 
above indicated all communications between the organs 
of locomotion and life are suspended and the curtain 
drops. 

How familiar we are with the tidings of sudden 
deaths which ought to call to our minds the causes 
which produce them. 

How much more precarious are the lives of busy 
men than in the days long ago. 

We hear the toll of the funeral bell and pass on with 
simply a shake of the head. Why this deplorable 
change ? 

Many are overworked and many are stimulated on 
to overtaxation by the use of strong drink under the 
delusion that they are being strengthened for greater 
endurance, when in fact every drink adds another 
scuttle of fuel to the furnace that is burning out the 
overtaxed brain. 

The oil soon runs low, as in a nearly .exhausted 
lamp; you turn the wick a little higher, and for a few 
minutes you get a more luminous flame with an in- 
creased drain upon the little remaining oil, when the 
light soon dies out and the scene closes and darkness 
prevails. Such is an overstimulated life. 

It has long since been thoroughly established that 
alcohol is to be found in the brain of one who dies in 
the state of inebriety. Thus it is certain that alcohol 
received into the stomach enters the blood and circu- 
lates to the brain, little, if at all changed. 

Dr. James Kirk of Scotland was one who over seventy 
years ago, found on dissecting the brain of a man who 



HUMAN BODY 43 

died in a state of intoxication after a debauch, that 
it contained alcohol with an unmistakable odor of whis- 
key. When a portion of it was taken out on a spoon 
and held to a blaze, it burned with the characteristic 
blue flame of alcohol. 

Dr. Oyston, of Aberdeen, at about the same time, 
made a desertion of the brain of a woman named Cattie, 
who drowned herself when intoxicated, and with an- 
other physician he examined the fluid collected in the 
brain, with the same result as that reached by Dr. 
Kirk. 

Dr. Percy instituted a series of experiments upon 
animals and had no difficulty in obtaining alcohol from 
the fluid of the brains of those to which alcohol had 
been adminstered by the stomach, which was indicated 
not only by its odor and' inflammability, but also by 
chemical tests and its power after it was distilled from 
the fluid, of dissolving camphor. 

Whatever deteriorates or disorganizes the blood, in- 
jures the functions of the brain, because so much of 
that fluid circulates through it. 

The brain is the seat of the mind, the fountain head 
of character, so when the brain is impaired character 
is deteriorated and society surfers. 

When blood is charged with alcohol it fails to carry 
the requisite amount of nourishment and oxygen, thus 
the functional offices of the brain become deranged, 
the mind is weakened and the whole cerebral appara- 
tus is out of order. The mind indicates the man, and 
Emerson says, "Thoughts rule the world." When 
the bram is excited or irritated by alcohol it is gorged 
with blood and the thinking powers are weakened, 



44 ALCOHOL ON THE 

thus several diseased conditions of the mind are pro- 
duced. 

Alcohol creates irritation of the brain and hardening 
of its albumen, which is abont forty per cent of its 
composition, congestion, leading to impairment of the 
perceptive faculties, of the reasoning powers, of the 
judgment, and in extreme cases to delirium, insanity, 
appoplexy, paralysis &c. 

Its first action is that of an excitant followed by se- 
dation and if long continued, by stupefaction. Another 
effect which it produces through the agency of the 
brain, is that of exciting the lower or animal propen- 
sities. 

The nervous system is particularly susceptable to 
the pernicious influences of alcoholics, as is so gener- 
ally observed in the drinkers of that poison. The ner- 
vous and vascular systems are among the first in the 
human body to suffer from its direful attacks. 

While a little more than fifteen per cent of the deaths 
as a whole in our country are attributable to diseases 
of the nervous system and the digestive organs, it is a 
statistical fact that more than fifty per cent of the 
deaths among the drinkers of alcoholic beverages are 
due to diseases of these organs- 

Physicians everywhere are awakening to the import- 
ant subject of the effects of alcohol upon the human 
system. In Canada they are giving it particular at- 
tention. The question was asked of one thousand 
three hundred and fifty-five Canadian Physicians if the 
general health would be improved by total abstinence, 
and one thousand and sixty-eight replied in the affir- 
mative. 



HUMAN BODY 45 

On moderate drinking a question was asked as to its 
permament effects, and nine hundred and one out of 
thirteen hundred and forty physicians answered, that 
the use of intoxicants, even in moderation, is injurious 
to health, and to the activity of bod}' and mind.* 



> + < » 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ALCOHOL ON THE MIND. 

Among the first effects of alcohol, as before indicat- 
ed, are paralyzed nerves that supply the minute blood 
vessels, the nerves that regulate the flow of blood 
through the capillary net work of blood channels, thus 
sending the blood through the body with increased 
velocity and distending every capillary tube until the 
surface is flushed with crimson. 

While it cheers and exhilarates for the time being, 
it imparts no nourishment, force or power to the sys- 
tem, but distrubs mental equilibrium and blunts the 
mind, and if long continued, mental weakness, mus- 
cular languor, lessened will power and a general de- 
present effect supervenes. 

Mind is the great moving power of the world, the 
far-reaching intellectual luminary. As one writer 
says, ' 'Rear stronger minds and they will lift up the 
race to sublimer heights of dignity and power. ' ' 

But this great desideratum cannot be perfected so 
long as man will defy the natural laws of God by send- 



''See Chapters 6 & 7. 



46 ALCOHOL ON THE 

ing streams of liquid poison through the delicate or- 
ganism with which he has been endowed. 

The great and noble ambition of our race at the 
present day is for the development of the mental fac- 
ulties, and their adaptation to a refined life. The first 
step in elevating mental power is that of cultivating 
and improving bodily constitution and bringing the race 
up to a higher physical organization which will develop 
stronger minds, and secondly, to cultivate whatever 
intellect there is, high or low, to a more elevated 
plane. 

To-day there is no greater drawback to the develop- 
ment of mind and thought, the fountain heads of vir- 
tue, power and influence for good than the effects of 
alcoholic beverages as depicted from a physiological 
standpoint in this and former articles of this series. 

Alcohol, acting as a powerful narcotic poison, pass- 
ess quickly from the stomach into the blood and neces- 
sarily produces direct, speedy and disastrous effects up- 
on the brain and nervous system, blunting the mind 
and deadening the perceptive faculties. The nerves 
being thus injured the muscles must per force become 
impaired. 

As alcohol lessens contractile power it enfeebles and 
renders muscular tone uncertain. So the drinker, 
from his first glass, commences his journey down the 
toboggan slide, going faster and faster until he reaches 
the final plunge. 

Again, how different is the appetite for food under 
God's wise physical laws, from that for intoxicating 
drinks, instigated by the devil and cultivated through 
the influence of his legalized emissaries. 



HUMAN BODY. 47 

When nature demands food we eat, and the demand 
is satisfied for the time being until hunger again sends 
out its call in answer to the natural necessities of the 
system, and so on and on with no increased desire 
from past indulgencies. And so it is with God's pure 
beverage to man, cold water, and thus life is sustained 
and prolonged. 

Not so with intoxicating beverages which God has 
never placed in the list of natural necessities, but we 
drink to-day, and the morrow comes with increased 4e- 
sire, an artifical craving, and the yielding to that un- 
natural demand carries a hundred thousand victims 
down to drunkard's graves and a drunkard's eternity 
every year in this country. 

Why is it that these evil results are so sure to follow 
and all that is good in human nature becomes so dwarf- 
ed and demoralized ? It is because this narcotic poison 
throws the whole physical organism into a diseased con- 
dition, more or less permanent according to the con- 
tinuation or application of the noxious influence. 

Nearly all the component parts of the body under 
these conditions lack firmness and tonicity and their 
resisting power is diminished, and that for self-repair 
which nature has so wisely ordered becomes less and 
less under the strain so that the healing of wounds, 
for instance, sometimes even of slight moment, and 
diseases to which flesh is heir, are hard to manage and 
slow to recovery, if that blessed state be reached at all ; 
beside, many diseases, as formerly narrated, are induc- 
ed and human existence untimely curtailed. 

We have ample proof that the dread disease, pul- 
monary consumption, as shown by : statistics, run 



48 ALCOHOL ON THE 

through to a fatal termination more rapidly with those 
who have been addicted to the use of alcoholic spirits, 
just in proportion to the amount consumed and the 
time of its continuance. 

Various cases of death which are accredited to dif- 
ferent maladies or ailments are, as medical men often 
know, traceable to alcohol, which has prepared or 
brought the system into a state susceptible to the at- 
tack and development of disease, which would not 
have occured, or if it did, would not, as a rule, have 
been fatal. 

Insanity is one of the common and fearful results of 
alcoholic indulgencies, amounting to 40 per cent of the 
great list of lunacy cases on record. 

Could intoxicating drinks be banished from the land, 
much of disease, pauperism and crime would be avert- 
ed, and then too what a falling off there would be in 
the commitments of our alms houses, prisons and asy- 
lums ! 

Read some of the testimonies that are thundered 
down from high sources against alcoholic indulgencies 
in connection with crime. 

Mr. Clay, Chaplain of the Preston House of Correc- 
tion (England), said : "I have heard more than 15,000 
persons declare that the enticements of the ale and beer 
houses had been their ruin." 

Chief Baron Kelly said two-thirds of the crimes which 
came before the courts of law were occasioned chiefly 
by intemperance. 

Judge Coleridge has said that there was scarcely a 
crime before him that was not directly or indirectly 
caused by strong drink. 



HUMAN BODY. 49 

Judge Hawkins has told us that if all the cases ap- 
pearing upon the court calendars of England were 
taken, it would be found that 75 per cent, of the crimes 
were directly or indirectly traceable to the inordinate 
use of liquor. 

Our own Judge Noah Davis said that intemperance 
stands out the "unapproachable chief among all the 
causes of crime," that more than twenty-five years on 
the judicial bench warranted him in the belief that 
three-fourths of the crime and seven-eights of the 
poverty and distress in our country are the direct or 
indirect results of the liquor traffic. 

Dr. Elisha Harris, for many years the Inspector of 
Prisons in New York State, asserted that more than 
half the convictions for crime in the state could justly 
be charged to alcoholic drink. 

We are told that of 115,000 prisoners visited in dif- 
ferent prisons, 105,000 were there through strong 
drink. 

Hon. A. B. Richmond, a noted member of the 
Pennsylvania bar, high up in the legal profession, 
with more than thirty years' experience in the courts, 
said he had been engaged in nearly 4,000 criminal 
cases, "and," said he, "on mature reflection I am 
satisfied that over 3,000 of those cases have originated 
from drunkenness alone, and I believe that a great 
portion of the remainder could be traced either direct- 
ly or indirectly to this great source of crime. In fifty- 
six cases of homicide forty-three have been caused by 
the maddening influence of strong drink. ' ' 

These are but a tithe from the long list of just such 
records that could be quoted. 



50 ALCGHOL ON THE 

Much has been said and written of heredity which 
plays a very decided part in the downward tendencies 
of our race. Statistics reveal unmistakeable proof of 
the researches of scientists, founded upon careful study 
and comparison, that heredity molds and changes our 
external configuration and our internal structure, af- 
fects our proneness to or freedom from predisposition 
to disease, fashions our virtues and vices and greatly 
determines our longevity. 

Darwin, in his wiitings, in speaking of our mental 
and moral structure, says : "They are the direct out- 
come of preceding generations, and we, the living gen- 
erations, are like the living fringe of the coral reef, 
resting on an extinct basis formed by our forefathers, 
and shall in our turn form a basis for our descendants. 

How careful we should be in the care of our. own 
moral and physical proclivities, that we may not tran- 
smit to posterity diseased habits or constitutional de- 
filements. As we inherit horn our progenitors, feat- 
ures, habits, disposition and many pecuilar traits of 
character, including virtues and vices, it is simply in 
the direct line of heredity that we should hand down 
our cultivated appetites for alcoholic drinks with their 
depleting influences upon the health, mind and morals, 
in which no other agent is more destructive in its pri- 
mary or remote influences. 

Dr. Norman Kerr says : "But the distressing aspect 
of heredity of alcohol is the transmitted drink curse. 
This is no dream of an enthusiast, but the result of a 
natural law." 

The mind is very dependent upon the body ; without 
a healthy body, the mind, to a greater or less extent 



HUMAN BODY 51 

is weakened. To be delicate and whimsical is no 
longer tolerated as an element of sweetness and beauty. 

Vigor and strength are, in these latter days esteem- 
ed as essential elements of, and among the leading 
qualifications, in the make-up of sturdy, mental and 
physical manhood. Mind and body are co-workers in 
the great battle of life. 

To promote health of mind and body, the two must 
work in harmony. If the mind be disturbed from any 
cause the body helps, through sympathy to pay the 
penalty. 

If the body be weakened or diseased, the mind in 
turn tenders its sympathy, so in either case the whole 
mental and physical manhood suffer together. 

The terrible insidious enemy to mankind, alcohol, 
weakens the will power and the ability to resist temp- 
tations until at last the poison gains the mastery over 
the poor deluded victim, whose body limply sympath- 
izes with the mental weakness consequent upon the in- 
jured and impaired brain power, and before he is aware 
of the change he is a slave, fully in the grasp of the 
enemy, and he is a yielding captive to the will of al- 
cohol, with shattered reasoning powers and a failing 
body. 

The effects of Alcohol as a narcotic poison are so 
manifest that, in the language of some authors, "A 
once thoroughly intoxicated brain never fully becomes 
what it was before." 

The continued and free use of liquor thickens and 
hardens the membranous coverings or sheaths of the 
nerve substance, the blood vessels lose their tonicity 
and the whole cerebral mass becomes more or less de- 



52 ALCOHOL ON THE 

ranged, and the blood fails to supply the wanted 
nourishment, and the vitiation of the brain and nerve 
substance, the throne of thought, readily manifests it- 
self in an enervated mind, so prominent in persons 
habitually accustomed to drink, and thus various dis- 
eases, not alone of the body, but in extreme cases of 
the brain and nervous system, such as paralysis, epil- 
epsy, insanity, vertige, sometimes softening of the 
brain, impaired memory and often to delirium tremans, 
etc. etc. are the results. 

Sir Henry Thompson, high authority, said, "The 
habitual use of fermented liquors, even to an extent 
far short of what is necessary lo produce intoxication, 
injures the body, and diminishes the mental power." 

Without a well nourished brain these maladies are 
prone to follow as a sequence. 

Professor Carpenter in his physiology says, "Cer- 
tain persons are thrown into the stage of mental weak- 
ness by a single glass of liquor." 

Brain and nerve substance are largely imbued or 
supplied with water, which is one reason why it is so 
attractive to and so retentive of alcohol which has a 
strong affinity for it, in consequence of which the brain 
and nerve material are under its special destructive 
influence which so often leads to impairment of the 
mental faculties.* 



*See Chapter 15. 



HUMAN BODY 53 



CHAPTER IX. 

AIXOHOI* ON THK HEART. 

So searching is alcohol for opportunities to attack 
vital and vulnerable points that it almost seems as if it 
were one of the devil's special agents for opening the 
vestibule doors for the easy ingres of his satanic maj- 
esty to demoralize the moral man while the alcohol 
poisons and deranges the physical man. Not one moral 
element in manhood can be named but some victim can 
be recalled in whom that principle has been destroyed 
by alcohol. 

Not one nerve, nerve cell or blood vessel, however 
minute, not one organ of the body, no matter however 
important or unimportant, but some victim can be 
named for each in whom its poisonous sting has left 
its trade mark. Why ? Because when alcohol is taken 
into the stomach it very quickly passes into the blood, 
substantially unchanged, circulates to every near and 
remote fiber of the body, a circuit it never perforins 
without leaving its poisonous traces behind it to a 
greater or less extent. 

Majenda demonstrated that in one hour after alcohol 
was ingested it could be distilled from the blood. 
Other chemico-physiological experimenters in search 
of latent facts, have, over and over again, found it in 
all the different organs, tissues and fluids of the body. 

It must be evident to any honest thinker, that if the 
heart and blood vessels are daily subjected to this un- 
natural and damaging strain, day after day, week after 
week, and year after year, as in thousands of cases in our 
land, those organs must become permanently weaken- 



54 ALCOHOL ON THE 

ed and injured from the extra work which has been 
imposed upon them, and that the machinery of the 
human organism thus maltreated must of necessity 
wear out the sooner for it. 

Daily drinks of alcohol, even to one or two draughts 
only, will very often produce hypertrophy of the heart 
and chronic enlargement of the blood vessels, the lat- 
ter being so manifestly marked in the drinker's face. 

Such are the conditions which so often lead to fatty 
degeneration. It is estimated by some of our most 
learned scientists that the practice above referred to, 
even in the most temperote class of drinkers, leads to 
permanent strutural changes. 

All know that the circulation of the blood is carried 
on by the action of the heart, and nothing can be 
more beautiful and perfect than the pulsations of that 
organ and the respiratory movements of the lungs, 
which are made to correspond and assist each other in 
their functional duties, and to regulate themselves to 
the necessities and demands for blood and air, more or 
less, being increased by day and lessened by mght. 

All the harmonious regularity is governed by a sys- 
tem of nerves called the vaso motor system which are 
distributed all along the walls of the blood vessels to 
command contraction or expansion as requirements 
are made. 

When the face of a drinker is reddened by an in- 
creased flow of blood through the minute capillary ves- 
sels, it is a certain sign that the heart is in trouble as 
a result of alcohol and is working with increased 
rapidity. 

Sometimes an extra amount of labor thrust upon the 



HUMAN BODY 55 

heart is alarming, especially in cases of protracted dis- 
sipation. The heart is the busiest organ in the human 
body, and requires rest just as the body itself must 
have it, and nature has wisely provided for it, so that 
while the auricle upon one side contracts, the corre- 
sponding ventricle rests, or sleeps and vise versa, and 
any increase of labor put upon it produces a correspon- 
ding wearing out of the organ, as that arising from 
the irritating effect of alcohol. For instance, in a man 
of ordinary stature and health, the heart beats, as in- 
dicated by the pulsations at the wrist, 70 to 75 times 
per minute, or 4.200 times per hour, or 100.800 times 
per day, or 3.204.800 per year. 

The introduction of four ounces of alcohol into the 
stomach will increase the pulsation about eight per 
minute, or 480 per hour until the effect begins to 
wear off. 

In the average duration of life the heart pulsates 
3.000.000.000 times, while each pulsation represents a 
force of about thirteen pounds and sends about three 
ounces of blood around the body at each contraction, 
or 200 ounces every minute or 750 pints every hour, 
or 8 tons every day, or 2.920 tons every year. 

About one eighth of the weight of the body is blood, 
or 17^2 pounds to 140. 

From the experiments of Dr. Parks he found that 
taking the average pulsations of the heart to be 106. 
000 in 24 hours in a person using water only, as a 
drink, they were increased by the action: 

of one fluid ounce of alcohol 4.300 times 

a 2 << m << « SlJ2 a 

" 4 " " " " 12.960 " 

" 6 " " " " 18.432 " 

" 8 " " " " 23.904 " 



56 ALCOHOL ON THE 

And from the action of 8 fluid ounces on the follow- 
ing day 25.000 times. In each of the last two days 
when 8 ounces of alcohol was taken, the average in 
creased work done by the heart was equal to its lifting 
24 tons one foot high. 

Is it any wonder then, that after a night's dissipta- 
tion the drinker feels languid, weak and "used up," 
and his heart literally turning double somersaults ? Is 
it any wonder that so many drinkers go out of the 
world suddenly ? Is it not a wonder so many live as 
long as they do ? 

But this is not all, the drinker's heart is very, very 
liable to take on a superbundance of fat, and he to die 
of fatty degeneration of the organ. That is a common 
result of alcoholic drinking, and more especially among 
beer drinkers. 

That beverage seems to have an especial tendency 
to loading the internal viscera of the human beer tubs 
with fat. 

In health the blood contains only two to three ounces 
of fat to 1. 000 the highest being &% to 1.000. In the 
drunkard or constant beer guzzler it is 117 to 1.000, 
forty times more in the drinker than in the abstainer. 
The heart is often loaded to the extent of an inch in 
thickness, when of course in all the interstices 
among the muscles are large deposits of the same. 

Yet another, though less frequent result of dram 
drinking, is enlargement of the heart, and sometimes 
ossification of its valves, as I have met in some of 1113- 
own autopsies. 

As a sequence of this fatty deposit, a great change 
takes place in the power of contractility of the muscles 



HUMAN BODY. 57 

of the heart, the organ becoming weak and feeble, the 
pulse intermitting, the poor over-worked heart unable 
to do its required work with any degree of perfection, 
and when summoned to do a little more, under the 
stimulus of alcohol, perhaps often closes up its labors 
with a sudden collapse, and the poor, unfortunate, 
blind, besotted drinker is ushered into a drunkard's 
eternity, and his long-faced physician issues a death 
certificate of "heart failure." Yes ! It did fail. 

The medical practitioner is almost daily applied to 
for advice in supposed heart disease. I think I am 
safe in saying that fully seventy-five per cent, present 
simply symptomatic indications of other derangements. 
Some are caused by indigestion, some by fermentation 
simply, from badly chosen diet, indulgence in too much 
starchy food, particularly potatoes. Many cases of 
supposed heart maladies are readily traced to the use 
of that common article of diet, the potato, some of which 
may be changed so the heart will soon resume its nor- 
mal condition by abstaining from the use of that de- 
licious root, without the intervention of a single drug, 
unless in some instances it be a mild aperient to regu- 
late peristaltic movement. 

In some cases when extensive flatulence supervenes 
as the result of alimentary fermentation, causing pres- 
sure against the diaphragm, thus interfering with the 
heart's action, often alarming the patient, it is found 
necessary to cut out sugar from the diet also, as that, 
as well as the potato, contributes bountifully to the 
process of fermentation and sympathetic cardiac dis- 
turbance. 

By far the greater per cent, of the really marked 



58 ALCOHOL ON THE 

cases of cardiac or heart derangement, manifestly or- 
ganic, are easily traced to the use of alcoholic drinks 
or tobacco, or to their combined influence. 

When we think of the immense amount of' labor 
that little organ, the heart, has to perform to keep the 
machinery of life in motion, the only wonder is, that 
with our reckless living we are permitted to remain on 
this mundane sphere half as long as we are. 

The heart in general terms, is the great piopelling 
engine of the blood through and aiound the body, for 
the necessary changes it has to undergo. In a stand- 
ing posture when the heart indicates a pulsation, say 
of 80 per minute, it will, on an average, fall to 70 per 
minute when sitting and to about 65 when in a recum- 
bent posture. 

When alcohol is taken into the system as I have 
formerly indicated, it greatly accelerates the heart's 
action. Why so ? simply because the alcohol produces 
a semi-paralyzing effect upon the vaso motor nerve sy- 
stem, thus lessening the muscular hold over the small 
arteries, and failing to keep them properly contracted, 
thereby diminishing the power necessary to force the 
blood through them, consequently the heart contracts 
more quickly because the loss of the contractile force 
gives it less to oppose. 

Again, the heart has its own specially provided ner- 
ves to control and regulate its movements, which lose 
their power just in the same way that the vaso motors 
do, which cause the heart to labor more and accomplish 
less. The vaso motor nerve S3 T stem is composed of 
those little, delicate nerve fibers that have their origin 
in the medulla oblongata, or head of the spinal marrow, 



HUMAN BODY. 59 

and produce a motion of contraction or dilatation in 
the walls of the blood vessels. 

During all these changes through the operation of 
alcoholics the blood vessels become softened and weak- 
ened, which accounts for the occasional cases of apop- 
lexy in drunkards from rupture of these tubes in the 
brain. 

Of course the greater the quantity of alcohol taken 
into the system the greater is the increase of heart's 
action. If the heart pulsates 100,000 Unies in twenty- 
four hours, then any drink surcharged with one ounce 
of alcohol will cause an increase of 4,000 in the same 
length of time, and so on up. 

Thus we see the utter waste of muscular force ex- 
pended, to the general deterioration of the physical 
mechanism, which nature has provided should be hus- 
banded for every-day calls which she is required to de- 
mand for the perfect preservation of the body. 

After this extra strain imposed upon the heart has 
passed off, the heart flags as if fatigued and its pulsa- 
tions fall below its normal condition at the time the 
alcohol was taken into the system, more or less, accord- 
ing to the quantity introduced, consequently the whole 
system suffers from its inability to fully perform its 
natural functional duties. 

The great scientist Richardson has said ' 'alcohol de- 
ranges the constitution of the blood ; unduly excites 
the heart and respiration ; paralyzes the minute blood 
vessels, etc.," verifying the above theory, while Sir 
Henry Thompson, M. D., another scientist, says : "I 
find it to be an agent that gives no strength ; that re- 
duces the tone of the blood vessels and heart ; that re- 



60 ALCOHOL ON THE 

duces nervous powers, etc." Scores of others could 
be quoted in support of the same facts. 

Tobacco, too, is a virulent heart depresent, acting 
upon that organ much in the way of alcohol in its gen- 
eral results, i. e., the pulsations are quickened, the 
force weakened and power lessened. Like alcohol, to- 
bacco paralyzes the over-taxed nerves until they are 
half deadened by its poison, nicotine, often causing 
severe pain around the heart. 

There is sufficient nicotine in one common cigar if 
extracted and administered singly in a pure state to kill 
two men. One drop of it applied to the tongue of a 
dog will cause the death of the animal. 

Yet cigarettes are more destructive in their effects 
than cigars. Boys in the growing time of life are per- 
manently injured by them, in that their poisonous re- 
sults are manifest in dwarfed intellect, weakened heart, 
with enfeebled muscles and shattered nerves, checked 
growth, enervated will power, with trembling heart 
and limbs, all of which are becoming every day occur- 
rences among cigarette smoking lads. 

For these delicate dainties, the cigar product of last 
year, 1900, the internal revenue receipts amounted to 
the nice little sum of $ 19,785,481.60 ; on cigarette, 

$3>9°9> 191-30. 

Could all the cigars of one year's manufacture in 
this country be placed in 322 paralled lines, end to end, 
side by side, they would cover a w r alk 16 feet, 8 inches 
, wide from New York city to Chicago. Could they be 
placed in 100 parallel lines in the same manner they 
would make a belt more than five feet wide from Buf- 
falo, N. Y., to San Francisco, CaL 



HUMAN BODY 61 

Morally Considered . — When man panders to appe- 
tites and passions, his physical and intellectual powers 
suffer together ; they are hand-maidens in the down- 
ward tendencies of his moral manhood. In these in- 
temperate, unhealthful, demoralizing and damaging 
practices, man throws the lie in the face of his reason, 
denies the evidences of his senses and discards the in- 
junctions of his conscience. He defies nature and the 
laws of God and attempts to thwart them by revers- 
ing the rules of life laid down for a healthful living. 
As well might he expect to prosper in business enter- 
prises by always using the multiplication table back- 
wards. 

Some give way to evil practices though they see the 
disastrous consequences staring them in the face, 
while others commit the same errors because they are 
too morally blind to see the coming of the fatal result. 

Man given over to appetites and passions looks 
downward and his whole history can be summed up in 
three words : Birth, Sensation, Death.* 



* > + < « 

CHAPTER X. 

ALCOHOL ON THE LUNGS. 

Phthisis pulmonalis, or pulmonary tuberculosis, pul- 
monary consumption, is characterized by morbid pro- 
ducts denominated tubercles, known in medical par- 
lance as tuberculosis. Not alone in the lungs do we 

*SEE CHAPTERS 37 & 38. 



02 ALCOHOL ON THE 

find this degenerating process taking place in the ani- 
mal economy, but in the liver, spleen, kidneys, etc., 
etc., but that of the lungs only will be considered in 
this article. 

We meet with two varities of pulmonary tubercles, 
the gray and the yellow, the first located in the inter- 
stitial tissue outside the air cells, very small ; in auto- 
psies sometimes found so minute as to be almost undis- 
cernible with the naked eye, requiring the microscope, 
but they are generally about the size of millet seeds. 

The yellow variety is a sort of exudation within the 
air cells in small isolated round masses, sometimes ac- 
cumulating into little clusters. At length they become 
softened into a thickened mass, resembling pus, lead- 
ing on, not infrequently, to the formation of abscess, ' 
often breaking through the bronchial tubes, destroy- 
ing what lung structure it happens to include. 

That the disease can be conveyed from man to in- 
ferior animals by inoculating little portions of the tube- 
rcular exudations under the skin was discovered by a 
French physician in 1865, who found on killing the 
animals in two or three months' subsequent to inocu- 
lation, that their lungs were manifestly diseased. 

Did space permit, a tracing of the progress of the 
malady would be interesting, yet its terrible results are 
known to the general reader. Unless Koch's late dis- 
covery should prove a panacea, I can emblazen no in- 
fallible specific for thwarting its ravages, as I am a- 
ware of no unfailing agent for the removal of tubercu- 
lous cachexia, yet nature mav be so assisted as to hold 
the disease in check, often for a long period of time, 
by heroic restrictions. 



HUMAN BODY 63 

I have little faith, in drug treatment, in the main, in 
this malady. Because you have heard of cod liver oil, 
malt, ale, stout, chlorate of potash, fusil oil, bitter in- 
fusions, hypophosphites, ram, whisky, etc., etc., do 
not attempt to treat your own case, nor listen to em- 
pirical suggestions from those who ''have known so 
many just such cases cured," for such treatment often 
fans the latent spark into an untimely blaze. 

It is quite as important to ascertain what not to do 
as to acquaint one's self with just what to do. 

Then seek an early diagnosis from a skilled physi- 
cian and follow the advice he gives. 

Some think cod liver oil and whisky constitute the 
sheet anchorof hope in such cases, and that they may 
as well save the medical man's fee and invest it in those 
remedies. No one could be guilty of a greater mis- 
take. In that way, a wide open door has frequently 
been left for the ingress of the angel of death in pre- 
mature visitations. 

Of course your M. D. will tell you that you should 
take highly nourishing diet, as milk, cream, eggs, beef, 
lamb, etc., together with outdoor air and exercise as 
much as possible, and be warmly clothed with silk. 
woolen, furs, etc. 

If it be true that alcoholics are ever of any real 
benefit in this dreadful disease they are nevertheless 
dangerous playthings and should not in any event be in- 
dulged in except under the specific direction of a well- 
educated physician, who would not, under any cir- 
cumstances, recommend that line of treatment to an}* 
one who was addicted to their use, as he would know 
full well that an amount which would be required to 



64 ALCOHOL ON THE 

combat the disease in such a constitution would ship- 
wreck the patient without reaching the disorder. 

Simple as that remedy may seem to the ordinary ob- 
server, it is nevertheless a dangerous implement in the 
hands of the unskilled and should under no circum- 
stances be tampered with except under the directions 
of a competent medical adviser. 

Again, the the popular prejudice has made this class 
of afflicted ones particularly fearful of cool or cold air. 
High hills or mountain tops are the best localities, 
with something, business if possible, to interest and 
occupy the mind. Mind has a wonderful influence 
over disease. The cheerful, buoyant disposition often 
robs the grave for many years. Exercise shoud not 
be carried to the extent of fatigue or exhaustion. 

We gather from statistics that in a population of 
two hundred and thirty millions in France, Germany, 
Russia and England, the annual deaths from consump- 
tion are about eight hundred and seventy thousands, 
and that in the nine hundred and sixty-eight mi 1 lions 
inhabiting the globe three millions are called hence in 
each year by this dread malady. 

How preposterous the idea that to fatten the lungs 
and throw off or modify this disease alcoholics are in- 
dicated. The fat thus created by that agency is dis- 
ease, degeneration. It has been clearly demonstrated 
that even small doses of alcohol will cause little glob- 
ules of fat to float in the blood; effete matter. 

Beer, for instance, taken three or four times a day 
will increase bodily weight, the lungs taking a propor- 
tionate share; not from nutrition, but from its power 
to retard the throwing off the natural waste of the 



HUMAN BODY 65 

bod} 7 , thus retaining the old worn-out atoms in the 
form of fatty degeneration, which embarasses the tisses 
of the organs, lungs included, and weakens their func- 
tional powers. 

Is it reasonable to suppose that such physiological ac- 
tion will eradicate or prevent the formation of tubercles? 
It is said that an ordinary bottle of weak French wine 
will keep the lungs at work eight hours to get rid of it. 

When alcoholics are taken into the system the lungs 
always have an extra amount of labor to perform in 
the process of oxidation, thus they are weakened in- 
stead of being strengthened. 

Again it does not seem that God has set apart any 
favored spot on this mundane sphere as a panacea for 
comsumptives. As already suggested, high ground is 
preferable to low, if the atmosphere be uniform and 
dry, yet we find now and then an exception to that 
rule. In the main, a uniform, dry cold atmosphere 
like Minnesota or Colorado, yields the best results. 

On the whole we find it quite as difficult to select a 
locality where the patient will not be likely to suffer 
by the change, as to decide where the probabilities are 
in his favor, for it must be admitted that with those 
who make a trial of changing climate, vastly the great- 
er number do not find the expected relief, and an 
eradication of the disease is found in a very small mi- 
nority only. 

While I would in each confirmed case ask whether 
it were not really better to die at home among friends, 
than in a strange land isolated from home comforts, I 
would not dissuade any one desirous of making the 
trial, in consideration of the fact that a change of 



GG ALCOHOL ON THE 

climate does often give the patient temporary relief 
and comfort and retards the progress of the disease, 
thereby prolonging life; although the final result may 
be the same in either case. 

In years gone by I have known not a few of these 
afflicted mortals very greatly benefited by a sojourn to 
Florida, to California, to Cuba and many other places 
of resort for invalids, whereas to-day the same grade 
of patients in a vast majority fail to find the anticipat- 
ed relief in the same places, and many, many only 
reach their longed for land of recovery to find them- 
selves drooping and soon ready to die. 

One great reason was, the journey used to be a lei- 
sure one, so the patient began from the first day to 
meet with a slow change, giving time for the system 
to accommodate itself to circumstances and surround • 
ings and he often found himself much improved before 
reaching his destination, whereas to-day he is hurried 
off in a palace steamer or a rapid railway train, rush- 
ing from one extreme to another and tired nature is so 
surprised that she yields to the sudden change and the 
poor sufferer dies almost before his time. 



-3H*«- 



CHAPTER XL 
Alcohol on thk IyivKR. 
The liver is a compact gland of large size perform- 
ing a double office, first that of separating the impuri- 
ties from the venous blood of some of the viscera, and 



HUMAN BODY. 67 

second that of secreting bile so indispensable in the 
process of digestion. 

It is the largest gland in the human body and the 
seat of some of the most important functions of aminal 
life. It is about three inches thick, six inches wide 
and twelve inches long and its normal weight is from 
three to four pounds. 

It is located high up beneath the lower ribs, mainly 
upon the right side, in the abdomen and near the stom- 
ach. It is classified into two large divisions, the right 
and the left lobes, and those into the sub-divisions or 
lobules, etc. 

It is supplied with a great net- work of blood vessels, 
nerves little bile ducts and absorbent vessels. It is a 
body pecularly unlike any others of the viscera of the 
human organism in its anatomical structure and its 
pathological offices, and the functions which it is daily 
called upon to perform are more complex than those 
of any other glandular body in the human mechanism, 
and when deranged the whole physical machinery is 
thrown out of harmony into discord. 

When alcohol is taken into the stomach it soon finds 
its way to the liver and at once commences its injuri- 
ous effects upon it. 

The liver seems to act the part of a faithful and 
trusty sentinel, by grasping, or absording much of the 
alcoholic poison which is received into the stomach and 
arresting it in its passage to other organs. Conse- 
quently from continued trespass and abuse upon its 
kindly office it becomes impaired and abnormally 
changed, often followed b}- fatty degeneration and en- 
largement of its whole structure. It being so closely 



08 ALCOHOL ON THE 

and intimately connected with the stomach, and con- 
sequently absorbing from it a vast amount of liquid, 
explains the reason of its becoming functionally de- 
ranged when among those liquids alcohol intrudes it- 
self into its good graces, actually changing the sub- 
stance of the organs through which it passes. 

It is an incontrovertible physiological fact that al- 
cohol changes the anatomical constituents of the liver, 
increasing the number of bile ducts as well as their 
size, and finally tacking about and obstructing them 
until disorganization of the entire glandular structure 
supervenes. This is particularly so with wine and 
beer drinkers. 

Thus we see the stomach is not alone engaged in the 
process of digestion but that the aid of other organs is 
requisite for its completion. 

Thus it is readily shown that the liver plays no in- 
considerable part in the preparation of the nutritive 
portion of the blood for its utelization throughout the 
system, or at least in furnishing one of the necessary 
ingredients for its consumation, bile, which should not 
be poisoned with alcohol, and it is very apparent that 
the functional duties cannot be properly performed by 
deranged organisms. 

Yet how many are the stupid simpletons who claim 
they must have beer, ale, wine, stout, or brandy to 
help the poor, weak stomach in its work, and to stim- 
ulate the liver in its torpor, to more lively action, con- 
sequently it does take on a little activity and hastens 
the victim to his final end. How deluded. 

Alcohol is just about as necessary and comforting 
under those circumstances as pneumonia is to the com- 



HUMAN BODY 69 

fort and longevity of a colony of wild monkeys. In 
many respects the liver receive^ the same damaging 
effects from alcohol that I have demonstrated as 
taking place in the drunkard's stomach, viz., irrita- 
tion, inflammation, degeneracy of the tissues, weaken- 
ing and distention of its blood vessels, etc., etc. 

One of the first results, however, is the change in 
the color of its secretion from a bright yellow to green, 
and sometimes almost to inky black, and occasionally 
thickened almost to the consistency of tar, often re- 
sulting in the formation of gall stones (biliary calculi). 

While, as I have formerly indicated that the cantact 
of alcohol with albumen hardens it, here we find that 
its contact with the biliary secretion of the liver hard- 
ens that also, the change converting it into dead 
matter. 

During these changes, which by the way are more 
pronounced in the daily tippler than those who have 
their periodical sprees, then break off into intervals 
of abstemiousness, the drinker receives little or no 
warning of the danger ahead until nearly or quite too 
late. 

In the same class, too, we frequently meet hypertro- 
phy, or enlargement of the organ. That is one of the 
common results of dram drinking, increasing the or- 
dinary size and weight of the gland from three or four 
pounds to double, treble or quadruple that of its nor- 
mal condition. The writer once saw a specimen which 
weighed thirteen pounds. During all this change the 
structure of the organ is constantly undergoing dis- 
organization, or breaking down and becoming soften- 
ed, while under some other changes it becomes hard- 
ened. 



70 ALCOHOL ON THE 

In some countries poultry dealers macerate the food 
for their fowls in alcoholic spirit in order to bring a- 
bout this diseased change, thereby producing, in some 
instances, enormous sized livers, which command large 
prices in the markets as palate ticklers for epicures. 

Like some other maladies this disease of the liver 
has increased alarmingly since beer became so gener- 
ally used as a beverage among the drinking classes. 

I think it quite within bounds when we estimate 
that the number of cases have increased seventy per 
cent, since the use of beer has become widespread. 

Indeed, it is the exception to find a case in any but 
drinkers of intoxicating beverages. As I have indi- 
cated the change goes on so gradually the poor delud- 
ed drinker often imagines he is actually taking a new 
lease of life. 

One writer says, "Let no toper flatter himself that 
when he has snored out his drunken sleep, and even 
paid his next day's headache, he has discharged his 
last score of penal debt to the laws of an outraged or- 
ganism.'' 

Bear and porter drinkers seldome reach an advanced 
age ; they drink with the deluded idea that they are 
being benefitted by it, growing corpulent and healthy. 

These drinks are about as necessary to get good 
health as a licensed saloon is to the morals of a com- 
munity or small-pox to the success of a camp meeting. 

It is a recorded physiological fact that almost all, 
even moderate drinkers, are carrying with them, more 
or less enlarged and softened livers. These changes 
come on so gradually and painlessly that the afflicted 
drinker does not realize that anything wrong is taking 
place. 



THE KIDNEYS 



N°I. 
HEALTHY STATE 




N°2. 
DISEASED FROM INTEMPERANCE 




HIlMAN BODY 71 

Often the first warning is of so serious a rature that 
the patient learns from his medical adviser that nothing 
but paliative remedies will be of use to him, as the day 
for curative measures has passed, while he was tipp- 
ling in the serenety of supposed health, but really a- 
bout as safe as a powder house struck by lightning. 



CHAPTER XII. 

ALCOHOL ON THE KIDNEYS. 

It requirer no argument to convince any sane man 
that the kidneys are among the most delicate organs 
in the human body. They are highly organized and 
yet have to act the part of scavengers for the human 
ecomony. It is seldome indeed that the kidneys of a 
drunkard or an habitual drinker are found in a healthy 
condition. 

These organs are prone to derangement and disease 
in all persons, but as in the case of the liver, vastly 
more so with those who indulge in alcoholic drinks, 
and as previously noted their diseases are greatly on 
the increase among ale and beer drinkers. 

The functions of the kidneys are peculiar, delicate 
and of vital importance to the prolongation of life. 
They are really the highest grade of filters in their 
functional office, removing from the blood by their 
excretory powers, the watery and nitrogenous portions 
with which it is laden, in the form of urea. 

They are abundently supplied with blood vessels, 
thus they are never in want of material upon which to 



72 ALCOHOL ON THE 

work. This beautiful mechanism, with its great func- 
tional duties and responsibilities is, under the most 
favorable circumstances, burdened to its fullist capa- 
city. 

Now add to it the necessity of eliminating from the 
blood, the alcohol that the silly toper pours into his 
stomach from day to day, who can longer wonder that 
so many drinkers are ushered into eternity with con- 
tracted, degenerated, granulated, fatty, enlarged, 
softened, broken down kidneys, (Bright's Disease) 
Diabetes and a great net-work of ramified ailments 
consequent upon it. 

In cases where the kidneys become thoroughly and 
chronically diseased, the recoveries among them con- 
stitute but a fractional per cent. 

Bright's disease is more prevalent among males than 
females for the simple reason that the former indulge 
more in still-house slops than the latter do. 

Again the very great majority of cases are found 
among drinkers of ardent spirits. Those beverages act 
as irritants and diuretics and greatly increase the bur- 
dens of those little organs. 

When over worked for a protracted period, they be* 
come functionally deranged and utterly unable to per" 
form their delicate and intricate offices properly, when 
disease steps in and takes possession of them, and soon- 
er or later relieves them of the burden which has been 
so ruthlessly and wickedly thrust upon them. 

Rheumatism and rheumatic gout often arise from the 
half worn out condition of the kidneys from their long 
continued subjection to stimulating or irritating abuse, 
being unable longer to eliminate the morbid matters 
from the system thus they are permitted to remain 



HUMAN BODY 73 

and act as diffusible poisons, and the toper limps and 
groans as one of the penalties for his trespass upon his 
own body, that beautifully furnished house which God 
gave him for the indwelling of the spirit. 

God's laws are certain and cannot be trespassed upon 
without producing a penalty. 

Some of our most noted scientists, as Dr. Carpenter, 
Dr. Christison, etc. bear testimony to the fact that 
three fourths of the kidney diseases, yes, three-fourths 
thoughtfully spoken, are found in drunkards, or habit- 
ual drinkers. 

All honest and learned scientists will admit that al- 
cohol produces a high degree of irritation in the kid. 
neys, which if prolonged, leads to inflammation, thence 
to a change in their structure, tending to the worst 
forms of renal disease. 

Alcohol is about as necessary to one's health and 
longevity as a practical knowledge of pool-playing and 
gambling is to a successful preacher. 



^<H£- 



CHAPTER XIII. 
Alcohol on the Blood. 
Every living animal body is supplied with a little 
furnance of his own for generating the necessary heat 
for its existence. To illustrate crudely the circulatory 
system, let me ask you to imagine that you have two 
of the. most thickly or well-filled branches from a fir or 
a pine tree, the butt or large end of one being placed 
over the left side of the heart to represent the arteries, 



74 ALCOHOL ON THE 

and the other in like manner over the right side to re- 
present the veins. Now suppose you have them so 
nicely adjusted that all the little twigs or needles cf 
the two branches just come together, point to point. 
The blood starting through the arteries from the heart, 
loaded with oxygen, which soon receives the nutritive 
portion of food from a little duct, which is constantly 
being given out where the little hair-like ramifications 
(twigs) come together to form the junction of the art- 
eries and veins where the latter take the blood from 
the former, which has become loaded with impurities 
along its way, and carry it back to the right side of 
the heart, thence to the lungs to throw off the gathered- 
up impurities along its way, and receive a new supply 
of oxj^gen from the air inhaled, for another round. 
The heat of the body is generated at the junction of 
these small hair-like arteries and veins called capillar- 
ies, by the unision of the oxygen in the blood and the 
carbon deposited from the nutriment of food at those 
points, which keeps up a constant spontaneous com- 
bustion. This is a beautiful process of nature carried 
on unerringly when not in terf erred with by some in- 
truder, as alcohol, for instance. 

These little capillary blood tubes are so infinitessim- 
ally small that to see them requires a strong magnifier, 
and so numerous and closely interwoven are they that 
they form a complete net-work all through the body, 
so minutely that the point of a pin wounds a number 
of them when inserted into the skin. The vascular 
system including these little capillaries, could they be 
straightened out into one line, those in an ordinary 
sized man would reach 14,000 miles. The blood is 
composed of a yellowish-like liquid called plasma, in 



HUMAN BODY. 75 

which are floating innumberable little corpuscles or 
blood globules like the butter globules in the milk, of 
a very high red color, only about the three-thousandths 
of an inch in diameter, so small that an ordinary pin 
hole would be 10,000 times larger than one of them, 
and yet they perform some of the most important func- 
tions in the economy of life and manifest marked dis- 
turbance whenever they are enroached upon, as in the 
case of a liquor drinker, when they become distorted 
into all sorts of irregular shapes, and are partially de- 
prived of their bright red color ; and they are stimulat- 
ed to an unnatural contraction, rendering them less 
capable of absorbing oxygen and throwing off carbon. 

This contracting process, together with the debility 
produced upon the capillaries by the partial paralysis 
of the little nerve fibers accompanying them, cause much 
unnatural distention, so that an undue amount of the 
globules are forced through them, often leading to 
damaged health and loss of life. 

Were alcohol a food it would nourish and support 
these little messengers of life instead of poisoning them 
as thus indicated. To impress by recapitulation, read. 

Alcohol is not food, but is a poisonous intruder, 
thwarting the beautiful and important designs of nature 
by depriving the blood corpuscles of part of their water , 
thus contracting their size, changing their relative ar- 
rangement, lessening their vitality and greatly dimi- 
nishing their power to absorb oxygen, which is so re- 
quisite for the promotion of life and health. 

So we find it a great impediment to the necessary 
functional office of the blood. This is particularly so 
in youth, the growing period of life, when ceils are 
forming and the nutrition of the tissues in particularly 



76 ALCOHOL ON THE 

vigorous. At such times alcohol arrests growth and 
development. 

Dog fanciers often take advantage of their knowledge 
of this fact by administering alcohol to young puppies, 
to arrest growth and development, so as to raise them 
to mature age in puppy size. 

Of all persons the young should abstain from alco- 
holics. 

Alcohol, having a strong affinity for water, seeks it 
vigorously whenever it comes in juxtaposition with it, 
and absorbs or sponges up a percentage of it, which in 
the human body, is readily absorbed by the veins of 
"the alimentary surface, or, in other words, passes re- 
adily through the walls of those venous vessels by the 
process of endosmosis, or straining through membrane, 
called as above, absorption. 

Through this medium and that of the portal system 
(via the liver), it becomes very largely diffused through 
the entire body by means of the venous and arterial 
system. 

In its natural state, alcohol, though brought in close 
contact with a blood vessel, will not find its way 
through into the blood until first becoming diluted 
with water. 

So, after its introduction into the stomach, it at once 
commences its trespassing and damaging effect upon 
the internal viscera and their functions, by robbing 
them of their watery constituents until it becomes suf- 
ficiently diluted to leap through or become absorbed 
into the blood within the vessels indicated. 

Now it is in position to commence its poisoning and 
damaging effects by producing very important physical 



HUMAN BODY. 77 

• 

changes in the different structures and organs with 
which it conies in contact. 

Having become diffused with the water of the blood 
it is in condition to pass to ever}' pin's point of the 
body, and not one fibre thus visited escapes its damag- 
ing effects to a greater or less extent. 

Its first action is upon the different constituents of 
the blood with which it is now so freely mingled, first 
upon the fibrine, which is that substance which forms 
a clot in blood when drawn and exposed to the air, 
second upon the albumen, third upon the salts, fourth 
upon the fatty matters and lastly in a most pernicious 
manner upon the myriads of little blood disks or glo- 
bules, distorting them into shapeless masses, thus de- 
ranging the whole circulator)* system before it even 
has time to make its dastardly attack upon the diffe- 
rent viscera of the body. 

Sometimes its effect upon these little blood corpust- 
les it that they are drawn together and adhered to each 
other as if b}< inflammation, into little rolls or chains, 
often producing very serious results by their being less 
able to pass easily through the minute vessels of the 
lungs and capillary circulatory system thus impeding 
the blood current and producing local injuries. 

In this way alcohol becomes an enemy and a blood 
poisoner while the stupid guzzler is unaware of the 
mischief that is going on within him until oft times his 
body is a citadel of diseased members. 

Nature has wisely arranged our circulatory system 
for the preservation and prolongation of life, and we 
have no right to trespass upon its beautiful mechanism 
and impede its delicate and astonishingly perfected 
functional organism. 



78 ALCOHOL ON THE 

The arteries which branch out from the heart, laden 
with a full supply of newly oxygenated blood, the re- 
vivifying current of the system, and spread out so 
beautifully all over the body, terminating in fine tissue 
or web-like branches, which, at their extremeties unite 
with the veins for the return of the blood to the heart 
and lungs after having distributed its reanimating eli- 
xir of life, are performing too important and sacred a 
line of functional duties to allow such an enemy, such 
an intruder as alcohol to step in and interfere with 
some of God's most wisely directed plans without mani- 
fest injury as a result. 

These little arteries terminate in such delicate rami- 
fications that they are termed arterioles, and are so 
minute they will only allow a blood corpustle the three 
thousandth of an inch in diameter to pass through them, 
having a most wisely arranged power of contraction bv 
which the passage of blood through them is controlled 
or regulated in response to the contractions of the heart. 

It is very easy to understand how these functional 
duties can be interfered with, especially in the harm- 
onious workings that nature calls for between them and 
the great circulatory fountain head, the heart. 

For instance, some substances when taken into the 
blood will increase the contractility of the little vessels 
while others will weaken it. 

Alcohol is one of the latter class, and when these 
little vessels become weakened by it, the whole system 
is deranged and the drinker's red face and body indi- 
cate the presence of the intruder. By various experi- 
ments it has been clearly demonstrated that alcohol 
also paralyzes the minute vessels, thus robbing them 
of their contractile force, when a superabundance of 



HUMAN BODY. TO 

blood is allowed to flow through them for the want of 
the natural nervo-museular control. 

When a railway train has gotten on too much power, 
or momentum the air brakes are applied to help to re- 
gulate it. So the heart's action is held in check by the 
contractile force of the blood vessels (the air brakes) 
but when robbed of that power there is danger of hav- 
ing a runaway engine in the body some day. 

No experiments have yet proven that alcohol has 
ever assisted in the natural reparation of the waste in 
the tissues of the body, acting with or in any way sup- 
pling the place of any recognized food. No proof 
has ever been established that alcohol has increased 
physical strength or mental activity, enabling the 
drinker to accomplish more or better mental or man- 
ual labor. Why? Because when taken into the stom- 
ach it is absorbed into the blood, undergoing no diges- 
tive change, never in any way becoming assimilated, 
under which circumstances it could not yield any con- 
stituent principle for the sustenance of any of the 
structures of the body. 

The hosts of scrutinizing scientists, with their care- 
fully studied experiments for more than half a century 
past, have failed to discover any element in alcohol by 
oxidation or transformation that is in any way a build- 
er up or supporter of tissue, but quite the reverse has 
been clearly demonstrated. 

Dr. N. S. Davis in speaking of the experiments of 
Dr. Boeker and some of his own which have been re- 
peated by other scientists in Europe and America, 
makes the following pertinent statement : ' 'So nearly 
uniform have been the results of direct experiments 
that they fully establish the fact that when alcoholic 



80 ALCOHOL ON THE 

liquids are taken into the stomach or otherwise admini- 
stered, the alcohol is rapidly absorbed into the blood, 
circulates through all the tissues of the body and may 
be detected in the form of alcohol, both in the blood 
and in structures of the various organs, and while thus 
present, it diminishes temperature, nerve sensibility, 
muscular action, and both molecular movements and 
excretory elemenations, thus constituting it a true an- 
aesthetic and organic sedative. ' ' It may seem strange 
at first thought that alcohol depresses temperature 
even when surrounded by cooling influences and does 
not assist the body in bearing a high temperature. 
For instance, workmen engaged in glass works and 
iron foundries are fully aware that they must not use 
alcoholic beverages when at their work. 

So with stokers in the holds of steamships on the 
Red Sea, who are exposed to the intense heat. They 
are fully cognizant that the use of alcoholic drinks 
would be destructive to them, as they confine them- 
selves almost strictly to oatmeal and water. Indeed, 
alcohol is more destructive in its effects in high tem- 
peratures than even in low, for the simple reason that 
respiration is less active in high than in low tempera- 
tures, consequently the alcohol remains longer in the 
blood, thus giving more time for its damaging work. 

In hot climates people must be extremely careful 
about alcoholic indulgencies, particularly soldiers on 
long marches, when Sir Charles Napier, in an ad- 
dress to a regiment of British soldiers in Calcutta, 
said: "L,et me give you a bit of advice, don't drink," 
he spoke wisely and well. He said: "L,et me tell you 
that you have come to a country where, if you drink 
you are dead men. Be sober and steady and 5^1 '11 



HUMAN BODY 81 

get well; but if you drink you are done for." The 
pecular and diversified moral effects upon the brain 
are often alarming and yet at times very amusing. 
Ordinarily truthful men are sometimes the most in- 
veterate liars when excited by alcohol. 

Dr. Monroe of London tells a laughable incident on 
this very point of an acquaintance, ordinary upright 
and truthful, but on a drinking spree fell in with a 
young man who had served in the Crimean war, and 
this gentleman, who had never been out of England, 
gave such a thrilling account of his own suffering in 
one of the battles that when almost dead from bayonet 
wounds of the Russians, a brave campanion carried 
him off the field. The young stranger was so excited, 
the doctor says, that ''he seized the gentleman's hand 
and, when sobs chocked his voice, exclaimed : 'Are 

you , the man I saved? Here? Alive, whom 

I thought was dead? Give me your hand — I'm over- 
joyed ! How wonderful to meet here to-night ! Wait- 
er, bring in another bottle of wine'."* 



> » < 



CHAPTER XIV. 

A TRANSPARENT BODY. 

Were the human body transparent, and so arranged 
that we could look into, and see the workings of the 
different organs, as we look in upon the machinery 
of a watch and view its movements, we would readily 

*See Chapter 31. 



82 ALCOHOL ON THE 

see, without inquiry, why alcohol is such a deadly foe 
to human health and so often a destroyer of life. 

We should see that whenever alcoholics are taken 
into the system, nature's perfect movements are de- 
ranged, their harmony interfered with, the heart's ac- 
tion unduly increased, the nerves, brain, stomach, 
liver, kidneys, spleen, muscles and tissues poisoned and 
diseased. 

We should have an ocular demonstration that alco- 
hol is a poison which irritates, disturbes and throws 
out of accord all the internal viscera of the human 
bod y, retarding digestion, weakening the blood vessels, 
tissues and muscles, irritating the nerves and brain, 
and producing discord throughout the entire system, 
thus opening wide the door and inviting in as guests, 
disease and death. 

We should see in the drinker the beautiful surface 
of the inner membrane of the stomach gradually chang- 
ing from its soft, pinkish-yellow color to a blushing 
crimson. We should see myriads of little distened 
blood vessels, where we at first saw none, because be- 
fore they were disturbed by the alcohol they were too 
minute to be distinguished by the naked eye. 

We should see livid spots, thin ulcers appear upon 
its surface, all from the touch of alcohol. 

We should see the fine beautiful nerves become load- 
ed with little bulbs or nodules, as if tied into nots be- 
cause of the hardening of the albumen of their com- 
position. 

We should see the heart laboring with increased ac- 
tion to hurry along the intruder, alcohol, that it might 
be pitched out of door. 



HUMAN BODY 83 

We should see the little bundles of diseased fatty de- 
posits appearing along many of the organs. 

We should see the brain irritated and reddened, and 
its little blood vessels distended abnormally. 

We should .see the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the 
spleen gradually taking on disease, all from the poison- 
ing influence of the deadly guest invited into the house 
of perfection by the drinker. 

We should see all these dreaded changes taking place 
in the moderate drinker as well as in the confirmed 
drunkard, and thereby be made to realize why so many 
are dethrone i of reason, why so many die prematurely, 
and why we should do all in our power to eradicate 
the evil. 

The occasional or moderate drinker of to-day is sure- 
ly producing a physiological change in his system that 
will, unless checked in time, become an unconquerable 
foe, stealing upon him so gradually that he, like the 
victim in the story of the Laocoon, will find himself 
embraced in the deadly coils before he is aware of his 
danger. 

While it increases the action of the heart it unduly 
quickens the circulation of the blood, at first produc- 
ing a pleasureable effect, but constantly undermining 
his nervous energy, until by-and-by he will fall an 
easy prey to disease. 

It is a settled fact, demonstrated by scientific obser- 
vation that while the drinking of alcoholics is the dir- 
ect cause of death to an alarming extent, it is vastly 
more destructive in its indirect results by increasing 
the fatality of numberless diseases to which flesh is 
heir. 

The arousing of nature's energies beyond a healthy 



84 ALCOHOL ON THE 

action, mistaken by the drinker for increased strength, 
is simply opening the vestibule door to future misery 
and punishment. 

The alcohol he thinks he is using in such moderation 
will teach him a bitter lesson in the future unless he 
banish it into to, and he will find it a wily intruder 
and deadly trespasser upon the beautiful structure 
God has given him, in His own image and called it 
man. 



CHAPTER XV. 

HEREDITY OF INEBRIETY. 

This subject has for years attracted the closest ob- 
servation by our leading scientists, in private practice, 
in asylums and hospitals. 

That inebriety is a distinct form of disease is a set- 
tled principle in medicine and cannot be successfully 
gainsaid, and nearly the whole medical fraternity has 
cometo look upon and treat it as such. 

It is manifested differently in different individuals ; 
in some being furiously aroused at intervals, while in 
others it is continuous, constantly harrowing the cere- 
bral and nervous sensibilities. 

In a drinker of alcoholic stimulants, not a blood 
vessel, however minute, not a nerve or nerve cell, or 
any portion of the brain escapes the destroying influence 
of the narcotic poison. 

No child that comes into the world with unsound 



HUMAN BODY 85 

mind, brain and nerve tissues, and impaired blood is 
inheriting that which God first ordained should be. 

While the heredity of the disease is questioned by 
some on the theory that it is not a natural, but an ac. 
quired one, the greatest weight of medical testimony 
is recorded in unmistakable language, that it is heredi- 
tary, founded upon close and extended observation and 
that it is handed down through two or three generations 

If the law of heredity is that like produces like in 
reproduction, is not a disease produced by the poison- 
ous action of alcohol upon the nerve centers, the blood 
&c, likely to be reproduced in the offspring? 

Does not the embrio take from the diseased organ- 
ism the sting of their diseased conditions ? 

The disease of inebriety is transmitted by heredity 
from one generation to another, from parent to child, 
in accordance with the same law that governs any 
other constitutional taint, as tubercular consumption, 
cancer, scrofula etc, which are entailed upon posterity. 

Inebriety sometimes passes over one entire genera- 
tion without leaving a foot print of its existence, then 
asserts itself in the third, often with the peculiarity 
that the victim craves the same kind of intoxicant that 
his dissipated grandfather used to imbibe. 

It is idle to urge that the disease of intemperance is 
not hereditary, is not handed down from parent to 
child. 

I have been too close an observer along these lines 
in more than thirty years of medical practice not to 
have discovered, that weakness, defective mental 
powers, enfeebled development and even imbecility are 
often unmistakably transmitted from drinking parents 
to offspring. 



86 ALCOHOL ON THK 

Medical practitioners are almost in constant contact 
with alcoholic phthisis, alcoholic rehumatism, alcoho- 
lic gout, contracted liver, contracted kidney, inflicted 
upon the babe in utero. Why? Because of the poison- 
ed blood of the father or mother or both. 

These curses are so often seen stamped upon child- 
ren by diseased parentage that the intelligent physici- 
can is in constant dread of the results which are likely 
to follow his enceiut patients when husband or wife is 
a drinker. 

The little unborn body and brain having been stung 
by the alcoholized blood of the parent, and so poorly 
nournished that the child grows up to feeble manhood 
or womanhood, and if attacked by actue disease he is 
very likely to go down under its pressure for want of 
proper vitality and recuperative power, from which an 
ordinary constitution would recover without semblance 
of danger. 

I once met a lady whose father was a hard drinker. 
She was born with a craving appetite for liquor, and 
suffered the torture of the curse of inheritance in her 
almost constant struggle against the maddening ap- 
petite which her father left her as a legacy. 

She was a resolute and determined lady, an active 
Good Templar and had by her indomitable will power 
succeeded in keeping clear of the tempting bowl. 
But the paroxisms occasionally came and she had to 
meet the demon with stern resistance. 

But oh, her poor sister, afflicted with the same burn- 
ing, craving appetite was not so fortunate in her will 
power, for the paroxisms came, and often she yielded 
and went down under the sting of the poison cup, then 



HUMAN BODY. 87 

came up and had a peaceful interval for a time, to fall 
again. 

Their father died when they were girls, and the mot- 
her married the second time, more fortunately than 
before, that husband being a sober abstemious man, 
with healthy nerves, an elastic brain and pure blood. 

God blessed that union with two sons, now grown 
to manhood, neither of them ever having had the least 
desire for alcoholic drinks. 

If such cases are not handed down as legacies, the 
law of of heredity is a myth and comes as far short of 
representing its supposed office as a mule comes short 
of representing the virtues of an angel. 

My own asserted opinions having been founded 
largely upon personal observations, I now propose to 
quote a few paragraphs from the writings of learned 
scientists, known as authority the world over, to sub- 
stantiate my position. 

Medical records are teeming with reported cases es- 
tablishing the theory of heredity of the drink habit. 
Aristotle said, "Drunken woman brings forth child- 
ren like unto herself." Plutarch said, ''One drunk- 
ard begets another. ' ' 

The scientist, Dr. Caldwell, says, "By habits of in- 
temperance parents not only degrade and ruin them- 
selves but transmit the elements of like degredation 
and ruin to their posterity." 

Intemperate parents very often beget weak and 
poorly developed offspring, mentally and physically, 
and they in turn, if they ever become parents, are 
very likely to transmit the same direful inheritance, 
and as before indicated it does not always stop there 
but is sometimes inflicted upon succeeding generations. 



88 ALCOHOL ON THE 

Even the records of our criminal courts go far in es- 
tablishing the theory. 

Again we say that a very striking pathological fact, 
is that children cursed with a transmitted appetite 
often crave the favorite drink used by the parent. 

Dr. Elam, a noted scientist, says, "All the passions 
appear to be distinctly hereditary ; anger, fear, jeal- 
ousy, liberatinage, gluttony, drunkenness, all are li- 
able to be transmitted to the offspring. ' ' 

That more idiotic or feeble minded children are 
found among drinking progenitors by a very large per- 
centage than among non-drinkers is so well establish- 
ed that had I the space I would quote from the writ- 
ings of a great number of medical experts to substan- 
tiate the fact. 

Dr. Beach, of great experience, says, "There can be 
no reasonable doubt, in fine, that not the least pain- 
ful and unavoidable effects of intemperance in alcohol 
are the physical and mental debility and disease it en- 
tails on posterity." In citing different cases, he says, 
"In one case there were a son and daughter, both ex- 
cellent specimens, mentally and physically, of vigor- 
ous humanity. After the birth of the daughter, the 
father fell into habits of dissipation and rapidly be 
came an habitual drunkard. He had four children 
after his declention to inebriety. Of these, one was 
defective in mind, and the remainder were complete 
idiots. 

It is a well established physiological fact that in 
large families of children with a drinking parent or 
parents, the first born are the brightest, while the 
younger ones are in every way inferior, showing an 
actual degeneracy in the drinking parent. 



HUMAN BODY 89 

A case in point from my own observation. From 
boyhood up into manhood I knew well, a confirmed 
drunkard formerly a bright and respected young man, 
who had a most estimable wife. Four sons were the 
fruits of the marriage. The father had, through drink- 
ing, contracted a chronic disease of the eyes with gran- 
ulated eyelids which rendered him anything but an in- 
viting specimen of humanity. The first son came into 
the world with just the same condition of the eyes. 

The others in turn presented the same appearance 
and each one was cursed with a drunkard's appetite, 
and each became a confirmed sot. The eldest had the 
least of a wrecked constitution, but in regular order 
they grew less physically and mentally developed down 
to the youngest. Many times did I see the father and 
four sons loaded into an ox cart or upon a sled all 
beastly intoxicated and the oxen started off from the 
village to their home. 

The father died first, then the sons, commencing 
with the youngest, and the eldest surviving the longest 
and he at last dying a poor, bloated, blear-eyed degard- 
ed wretch. 

What an inheritance to force upon a family of sons 
and that, too, when they could not refuse nor consent. 
There was no more doubt of the inheritance in that 
case than there is that Noah was not the father of 
Adam. 

Our own late renowned Professor Willard Parker, 
in speaking of the influeuceof alcohol, said, "We must 
not omit to speak of the condition of the offspring of 
the inebriate. The inheritance is a sad one. The 
tendency to the disease of the parent is induced as 
strong, if not stronger, than that of consumption, can- 



90 ALCOHOL ON THE 

cer or gout. The tendency referred to has its origin 
in the nervous system. The children of the inebriate 
come into the world with a defective organization of 
the nerves." 

A few years since a deputation of English physicians 
examined 50.000 children in 105 schools, and found 
over thirty per cent of them were suffering from men- 
tal and physical derangement, directly traceable to the 
drinking habits of their parents. 

What a legacy to leave to an innocent offspring. 



^S^^Zr 



CHAPTER XVI. 

FROM PARKNT TO CHILD. 

How can we expect children to live long and heal- 
thy lives when born of parents dwarfed, tainted and 
diseased, as so many progenitors of to-day seem to be ? 

Is it a wonder that so many drnnkard's children die 
annually. 

And yet how much greater the blessing their being 
called home at an early and innocent age, than for them 
to live on in their miserable condition, and in their turn 
to by-and-by beget children more miserable than them- 
selves, or go down to their graves idiots, lunatics or 
criminals, as thousands do, having inherited these ter- 
rible tendencies. 

These facts cause us to ask, if alcohol be so support- 
ing, so nourishing, so strengthening, so productive of 
bodily preservation as some contend, why, why all these 



HUMAN BODY 91 

calamaties and diseases and death itself, so closely con- 
nected with its use ? 

Why should it not have strengthened the father, 
the mother, and in time given to their posterity re- 
doubled energy, strength of bod)' and mind and a pro- 
longed, useful and happy existence ? 

In my own experience of over thirty years of active 
practice, with no small amount of observation in our 
hospitals from time to time, I am forced to agree with 
Artistotle, that drunken parents do beget drunken 
children. 

Alcohol being indigestible, it never assimilates and 
is never utelized in the system. When taken into the 
stomach it is absorbed by nature's process known as 
endosmosis. That is, it is readily absorbed through 
the membranous tissues, and thus finds its way into 
the blood, and circulates with it to every part of the 
physical frame, yielding its poisoning influence all the 
way along. 

Thus it is that children often, very often contract 
the disease at the mother's breast, another mode of 
conveying the malady of drunkenness from parent to 
child. The father may have been a total abstainer all 
his life ; the mother may never have tasted intoxicat- 
ing spirits until after the birth of her babe, but that 
child grows up to be a drunkard, not with the inheri- 
tance from either parent at birth, but nursed from its 
mother subsequently, in consequence of her indul- 
gence in alcoholics during its nursing infancy ; thus 
drawing the seeds of disease from its mother's milk. 

It is a thoroughly settled principle in medicine that 
inebriety is a disease, and the whole medical fraternaty 
has come to look upon and treat it as such. On that 



92 ALCOHOL ON THE 

theory are based and established our best inebriate asy • 
lums all over this and other countries. 

Then it may very properly be asked is not alcoholic 
indulgence a vice? My answer is most emphatically, 
yes ! It is a vice followed up by disease. 

The blood of the nursing mother often becomes im- 
pregnated with absorbed alcoholics prescribed by a 
thoughtless physician, or one ignorant of the true 
pathological effects of the drug. 

The lacteal vessels of the mother are active and fill- 
ed with milk for the nourishment of the litlle one, 
which quickly becomes contaminated with the alcoho- 
lic potion prescribed. It is then taken into the stom- 
ach of the infant, circulated to and absorbed into its 
tender organs, leaving all along its way the foot-prints 
and effects of the drunkard's poison. The babe is no 
longer restless and peevish, but is innocently sleeping 
the sleep of the drunkard. 

Poor little tender thing ! it receives the engrafting 
of a drunkard's appetite from its mother's blood. 
Though not perhaps born with the heritage, it is forc- 
ed upon it in the incipient, laughing, budding time of 
its existence. 

A physician thus prescribing has much to answer 
for. He should be thoughtful, and careful not to pre- 
scribe intoxicating drinks to enceinte women and nurs- 
ing mothers, with the love of his lace and the fear of 
God in his heart. 

The results of such prescriptions are often that the 
little ones are never sober from the earliest period of 
their existence until they are weaned. The mother's 
blood and that of the infant at the breast are in com- 



HUMAN BODY, 90 

mon ; for from that of the mother come the nourish- 
ment and the life giving properties of the child. 

Medical statistics are teeming with recorded facts 
showing beyond contradiction that the children of 
mothers who use whiskey, wine, beer, porter or any 
alcoholics while nursing them, are vastly more likely 
to become drunkards in after life than those whose 
mothers carefully avoid their use. 

Such chi 1 dren do not usually have so much mental 
activity through life, they have less keenness of vis- 
sion, less nervous equilibrium, less capability for great 
mental or bodily achievements, less vital power to 
ward off disease, or withstand it when attacked. 

Men are often heard to say they are cursed with a 
craving appetite for strong drink and attribute it to 
the fact that their mothers drank liquor by the advice 
of their physicians when they were nurselings and that 
the) 7 had been obliged to fight the cravings all through 
life to keep from drinking. 

While the mother is soothed by alcohol the child is 
nursed into its first drunkenness. So the mother learns 
that when the babe is restless she can quiet it for a 
time by alcoholizing her own blood, by taking brandy, 
whiskey, wine, porter, ale or stout with her dinner, 
not realizing that she has permanently increased in the 
little one the irritability which she seeks temporarily 
to alia)'. 

So the mother under those circumstances is laying 
the foundation, not infrequently for fnture drunken- 
ness in that child, when, perhaps, it was born with 
blood and nerves and brain free from hereditary taint, 
but was soon thereafter started on its downward course 
by the thoughtless parent. 



1)4 ALCOHOL ON THE 

If from any cause the mother is unable to furnish 
sustenance for her child how carefully she selects the 
nurse who is to fill her place ; she must be a woman of 
unblemished character, of sunny disposition, and if it 
were so much as suspected that she was addicted to the 
use of intoxicating drinks, she would be immediately 
discarded. Yet the stupid physician will prescribe 
these very drinks to the mother, and the child imbibes 
a love for them in its first, unconcious infancy. 

In a word of digression allow me to speak of another 
practice that should be abondoned. The custom of 
feeding the little crying babes soothing syrups and 
quieting compounds containing alcohol, as many of 
the quack nostrums of the day, do. Such practice is 
simply devilish. No Mother has a right to make her 
babe drunk to quiet it. 



♦>» < ♦ 



CHAPTER XVII. 

ALCOHOL A GAY DECEIVER. 

Some people drink to make themselves hilarious and 
happy. Here they deceive themselves. The tempor- 
ary activity that the alcohol imparts to the brain is 
simply a production from the dilatation of the cerebral 
blood vessels which produces temporary exhilaration. 
But it is only temporary, always being followed by a 
little depression more or less according to the extent to 
which the stimulation, or irritation is carried. 

As we have alread}^ learned, the effects of alcohol 



HUMAN BODY. 95 

are more marked upon the brain than upon any other 
organ of the body. The depression is caused by the 
paralyzing effect of the drink, often leading to an utter 
loss of self control. Here again alcohol proves itself a 
gay deceiver by making the boisterous drinker do 
things for the amusement of others which he would 
not do when in his right mind, and those which are 
disgusting to his associates unless they be in the same 
maudlin condition. 

That sort of increased buoyancy is damaging to the 
constitution, debilitating instead of strengthening, irri- 
tating instead of soothing, and every repeated period- 
ical of the practice is one step more toward an untime- 
ly end. 

In many other ways it is a gay deceiver. It makes 
a man boast of riches when he had not a dollar to his 
name (the saloonkeeper has it) ; it makes him feel in- 
dependent of his felknvs when he is entirel}' dependent, 
it makes him think he is smart when he is playing the 
fool, it makes him imagine himself warm when he is 
cold below the normal. All thes^ and vastly more 
from the damaged, disturbed condition of the blood 
vessels of the brain. 

Again, many imagine themselves impregnable to the 
pow r er of infectious diseases if they be well filled up 
with tanglefoot whisky, brandy or some other strong 
member of the alcohol family. 

But that, too, is a grave error, for the condition of 
the system under the influence of alcohol renders it 
far more susceptible to pestiferous influences because 
of 'the temporaril3' weakened condition of the nerves, 
blood vessels and viscera of the bod}'. 

Brain workers are too often deceived bv the wily de- 



96 ALCOHOL ON THE 

inon, and as a class, they of all men should avoid it, 
as they are the least able to resist its ravages. It un- 
duly excites their brains, enfeebles memory, blunts 
imagination, dethrones reason and plays traitor t 
their confidence. Such are the ones who break and 
go down in the shadow of dethroned early manhood. 
Another of its deceiving peculiarities is, that great 
bodily damage is often done by daily imbibing, not to 
the extent of intoxication even, but so-called moder- 
ate drinking, which sometimes leads to an apthous or 
ulcerated condition of the stomach, softening of its 
lining membrane, and yet so little apparent disturb- 
ance that often the victim is unaware of any patholo- 
gical change taking place until it is too late for re- 
medial relief. Just such cases have come under my 
own observation. Truly alcohol is a gay deceiver. 

"They talk of the man behind the gun, 
And the deadly work that he has done, 
But much more deadly work by far 
Is done by the fellow behind the bar." 

The temperature of the body is always lowest in the 
morning before partaking of any food, increased dur- 
ing the active digestion of ordinary mixed food from 
one to two and half degrees, again decreasing alter di- 
gestion and assimilation is completed. 

On the other hand careful experimenters have posi- 
tively demonstrated that the introduction of alcohol, 
four ounces of brandy for instance, after the full diges- 
tion of a meal increases the heart's pulsations ten per 
minute, at the same time diminishing the usual neces- 
sary exhalation of carbon, but in a little time the ac- 
tion of the heart is somewhat lessened, and in a short 
time more the temperature begins to fall, attended 



HUMAN BODY. 9T 

with an increased reduction of exhaled carbon. In 
three hours under such circumstances the temperature 
will fall very perceptibly. 

Thus it is demonstrated that by the introduction of 
alcohol into the system, nervous activity and sensibi- 
lity are lessened as well as that of the brain, muscular 
tone and strength diminished and digestion interrupt- 
ed, as alcohol is not assimilated in the blood which it 
enters nor converted into any of its natural elements, 
but is a vile intruder, leaving its poisonous sting all 
along its journey through the system, lending noth- 
ing to the repairing or building up of waste material, 
comparatively unchanged when the scavengers of the 
body expel it therefrom. 

Yet it has succeeded in accomplishing something a- 
long its route. It has retarded the force of the cir- 
culation, lowered the temperature and vitality of the 
bod}', interfered with and deranged the offices of the 
nerve structures and brain, deteriorated the blood cor- 
puscles thus increasing the liability to fatty degenera- 
tion. 

Alcohol is therefore not a builder up of tissue sub- 
stance in the living body, imparts no force, strength 
nor power, thus furnishing little or nothing to be uti- 
lized as food in the bodily organism. 

In common parlance alcohol never keeps out cold. 
Alcoholic drinkers suffer from an undue rush of blood 
to the surface of the body owing to the paralyzing ef- 
fect of the poison upon the fine set of nerves called the 
vaso motor system with which the muscular coats of 
the vessels are liberally supplied, thus robbing them 
of their controlling power over the delicate muscular 
walls, leading to the over -distension and an abnormal 



98 ALCOHOL ON THE 

flow of blood, which greatly lessens their absorption 
of oxygen. 

Then, too, the cardiac vessels, those which supply 
the muscular struture of the heart, are affected in the 
same way, hence the lessening of the contractile force 
of that organ. 

Whenever an extra amount of blood is rushed to the 
surface of the body it is done at the expense of the in- 
ternal organs, lowering their temperature. It takes 
but a limited amount of alcohol to produce a waste of 
internal bodily heat. 

When the drinker thinks he experiences a change 
in the way of increased temperature after alcoholic in- 
dulgence, he is deluded, for the physiological fact is 
that the sensibility of his brain is functionally lessen- 
ed, and the impressions of the change is erroneous 
and deceptive. Such a fancied modificatiun is mani- 
fested in his mind and not his body. 

In the same manner a false impression of strength 
is often obvious ; the dilated vessels carrying more 
blood to the muscles, they are made for the moment 
to appear strengthened, but as there is not enough 
blood in the body to keep up an equilibrium the false 
fancy is soon vanquished. 

In 1786 over 22,000 persons were gathered at a great 
feast in St. Petersburg in its immense halls, given by 
the Prime Minister of Russia, Prince Potemkin, up- 
on which occasion brandy was served ad libitum, and 
so freely imbibed that drunkenness ran rampant among 
them. When they started for their homes in their 
maudlin condition in the cold crisp chill of the night, 
they could not endure the change, and their own tem- 
perature fell so rapidly that 16, coo of them perished 



HUMAN BODY 99 

as the result. The only survivors were those who had 
imbibed less freely. It will be a glorious day when the 
liquor traffic shall meet its final overthrow, as it cer- 
tainly will in God's good time. He may now be rais- 
ing a Lincoln for its overthrow. We shall see. Al- 
cohol is indeed a gay deceiver. 

There was never known such a thing as a natural 
appetite in man for intoxicating liquors, because God 
never thus created him. Such a thing would be an 
anomoly, a perversion. 

A natural appetite is a demand for something that 
is supplied through God's agency, not for something 
He never created. 

But intemperance creates an appetite, an ungovern- 
able longing for that which kindles in the human sys- 
tem an unquenchable fire of hell, to the destruction of 
body and soul. 

How strange that man will allow himself, in the 
light of this twentieth century, with a world full of 
evils for a warning, to be duped by this, the devil's 
gay deceiver, when he might so live as to full}* enjoy 
the sweets of life in this beautiful world of ours, mak- 
ing its sunshine and its shadows tributary to his march 
on to a final victory, master of himself, standing up in 
the dignity in which God created him, in the stature 
of a noble manhood. 

♦ > * < ♦ 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ALCOHOLISMUS. 

Alcoholismus is a toxical state of the system, or its 
sequel, known as alcoholism, under which the body is 



L Dt 



100 ALCOHOL ON THE 

thrown into a condition for the procreation of a great 
line of maladies, as its resisting power against the 
forces of causation is greatly lessened by the operation 
of alcohol, and the liability to fatal results proportion- 
ately increased. 

The effects of inebriety or alcoholism are evidenced 
in many alarming diseases, one of the most common 
and dangerous being fatty degeneration or superabun- 
dance of fat, indicating an unhealthy condition of the 
soft structures of the bod}*, often general, but frequent- 
ly centered upon one or more of its vital organs. The 
blood becomes so loaded with fatty globules that it is 
obliged, by nature's laws, to deposit them along its 
route among the muscular fibers, in and around the 
heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and other viscera and it 
becomes incapacitated for performing one of its im- 
portant functions, that of eliminating the general im- 
purities of the system. 

Poisoned blood, as with alcohol, cannot perform the 
office nature has assigned it, so the waste matters of 
the body must be eliminated from the blood in some 
way, hence they are deposited in by- places as above 
indicated. Drinkers of alcoholics often look to be in 
health when their constitutions are realty being slowly 
but surely undermined by the constant intrusion of 
the alcoholics imbibed. 

The redundancy of flesh and the floridity of com- 
plexion, upon which so man}* congratulate themselves 
as an indication of health and strength, is, in the 
drinker's case, a signal of disease, and a warning that 
nature's functional arrangements are being encroach- 
ed upon. Beer is one of the leading trespassers along 
this line, and the system is so thrown out of harmony 



HUMAN BODY 101 

and into discord that it is a dread to the physician 
when called to treat any illness or injury for such a 
patient, as he knows that under such circumstances the 
result is almost universally fatal. 

The list of toxicological writers is a long one, who 
unequivocal^ aver that alcohol is a narcotic or a nar- 
cotico-acrid poison. Many cases are on record of per- 
sons who died immediately or soon after excessive 
draughts of ardent spirits. Why? Because the sys- 
tem was poisoned by the alcohol being rapidly absorb- 
ed from the stomach into the blood, to the heart and 
brain; the nerves or nerve centers became paralyzed 
to such extent that they lost control over the heart, 
which organ ceased to pulsate and death closed the 
scene. Yes ! Modern science proclaims in no mis- 
takable terms that alcohol is a poison. 

When the nutritive fluild, the blood, becomes de- 
vitalized the tissues dependent upon it must suffer 
proportionately. Our bodies are constantly under- 
going change, wear and repair are continually in 
operation. 

So waste tissue must be supplied. Dr. T. K. 
Chambers, physician to the Prince of Wales, has very 
pertinently observed that the arrest of renewal is dis- 
ease and that the cessation of renewal is death. 

He also says: "It is clear that we must cease to re- 
gard alcohol as in any sense an aliment, inasmuch as 
it goes out as it went in, and does not, so far as we 
know, leave any of its substance behind it." 

It is patent to every pathological observer that alco- 
hol is a direct opposser to the renewal of tissue by its 
poisonous action upon the blood, and cannot be other- 
wise classed than as a poison. 



102 ALCOHOL ON THE 

The following from the pen of the learned Dr< Rich- 
ardson sums this whole matter up in a nutshell. He 
says: "I have learned purely by experimental observa- 
tion that in its action on the living body, this chemical 
substance, alcohol, deranges the constitution of the 
blood; unduly excites the heart and respiration; para- 
lyzes the minute bloodvessels; increases and decreases, 
according to the degree of its application, the functions 
of the digestive organs, of the liver, and of the kidneys; 
disturbs the regularity of nervous action; lowers the 
animal temperature, and lessens the muscular power. 

In our study of the effects of alcohol upon the 
human economy we learn that the drug is a poison; 
that if it contains any nourishment it is so slight that 
it is not worth the paper upon which to mention it; 
that it inflames, congests and ulcerates the stomach 
and intestines, that it enlarges and fattens the kidneys, 
spleen, liver and heart, that it incites diabetes, Bright's 
disease and delirium tremens; that it irritates, congests 
inflames and hardens the brain and fans the flames of 
cholera, small-pox, yellow fever, pneumonia and kin- 
dred diseases. 

That it readily mingles with, and impoverishes the 
blood in its circulation, overtaxes the heart's action, 
enlarges and weakens the small vessels, absorbs the 
watery element of the ablumen of the blood, nerves 
and brain, paralyzes many of the vaso motor nerves, 
disorganizes the nerve centers, distorts the blood glob- 
ules, weakens their functions and deranges nearly 
every organ through the system, like a bull in a china 
shop, proving itself far from being a blood-forming or 
haemo-globinogeuteic, as some of its advocates would 
have us believe., ... „, 



HUMAN BODY 103 

That it impairs the appetite, induces thirst, retards 
digestion; enervates the muscles, lessens the power to 
resist cold, weakens the mind, deteriorates the memory, 
paralyzes the judgment, creates fretfulness, embitters 
the temper and increases the animal propensities. 

These are a few of the drinker's blessings. 



♦ > » < 



CHAPTER XIX. 

BODILY HEAT AND DRAINAGE. 

The elements of animal life are warmth, growth and 
repair, giving health and strength. The first neces- 
sity of human existence is warmth in all periods of 
life, at all seasons of the year and in every clime, where 
the human body in health maintains the same tempera- 
ture. This requiste warmth, God has provided for. 
He did not leave it half arranged, for man to supply 
with alcohol, but so ordered that it is constantly de- 
rived from the food we eat, and that which produces 
the most warmth is called carbonaceous, represent- 
ing carbon in charcoal, never furnished by alcohol. 

When food is taken into the system it undergoes a 
process of combustion and the carbon it contains gives 
out the heat we require for life, which is diffused over 
the body, called vital heat. The amount which is 
generated in a person of full size in 24 hours would be 
sufficient to heat twenty gallons of ice cold water to 
the boiling point. Those kind of foods which pro- 
duce the most heat or are the most carbonaceous are 
sugars, starches and oils. Alcohol does not enter into 



104 ALCOHOL ON THE 

the list. Nature seems almost incomprehensibly wise 
in her demands and the requisites furnished to supply 
them. 

The infant derives its heat largely from the sweets 
with which the mother's milk is well suppled. While 
the nursling does not crave fats it does crave sweets, 
which its nature demands. In the first article in this 
series I spoke of the deposit of carbon and the com- 
bustion in the capillary vessels of the body, the circu- 
lating of the impurities, carbonic acid gas, etc., and 
back to the lungs for expulsion. 

But that is only one of the channels of the body 
provided for drainage purposes, if I ma} T be allowed 
the expression, yet in these short articles I cannot en- 
large in their description. 

Another of the great channels is the skin, which 
performs very important functions in this great clear- 
ing process and equalization of heat, upon which writ- 
ers do not seem to elaborate so much as upon the 
lungs, liver and kidneys, but which is of such vital 
importance in the great economy of life that I must 
give it more than a passing notice. It is generally 
agreed by physiologists that cutaneous exhalation ex- 
ceeds the watery discharges of both bowels and kid- 
neys. 

As the weather is warmer or colder the skin and 
kidneys alternate in their respective labors of elimina- 
tion, the skin exuding the most in warm weather and 
the kidneys disposing of the most in cold. Cutaneous 
exudation is directly produced by a vital process and 
is not merely an oozing of moisture through the pores 
of the skin. The great class of scavengers of the 
body are the lungs, skin, liver, kidneys and alimen- 



HUMAN BODY 105 

tary canal. These organs sympathize with each other 
in their labors of throwing off extraneous or waste 
matter. 

The skin is so abundently supplied with nerves and 
blood vessels that you cannot puncture it with a fine 
needle without wounding a nerve and producing pain 
and opening a blood vessel and drawing blood. It 
may almost be called a network of blood vessels and 
nerves of the very finest texture, and in a man of or^ 
dinary size covers 2,500 square inches. 

In one sense it is really a vast breathing apparatus, 
in that it so greatly assists the lungs in their impor- 
tant functions of eliminating extraneous or waste mat- 
ters from the body. It is also the great seat of the 
sensation of touch, an important auxiliary in the regu- 
lation of bodily heat. 

When the pores of the skin are closed their office 
falls upon the other organs mentioned and increases 
their labors, thus the exhibition of sympathy btween 
them. 

That the skin really acts as a sort of respiratory 01 - 
gan is evidenced by the fact that it secretes carbonic 
acid and absorbs oxygen from the atmosphere, thus 
imitating the lungs and aiding them in their function- 
al duties.* 

As a regulator of bodily heat, the skin performs a 
very important part in addition to its other excretory 
functions. In hot weather it emits a free exudation 
of moisture which lessens the temperature in passing 
from a hot, dry state of the body to that of a liberal 
perspiration, the evaporation of which imparts a de- 
lightful sensation in preventing too high a degree of 
*See Chapter 32. 



106 ALCOHOL ON THE 

heat in the body. When accelerated by heat or exer- 
cise, this exudation increases to the amount of drops, 
designated as sensible perspiration. 

This anatomical cutaneous arrangement is for the 
wise purpose of assisting the lungs in throwing off 
extraneous or impure matter from the blood, particu- 
larly carbonic acid, as well as to assist in regulating 
the bodily heat. 

Nearly twice as much water passes off by the skin 
as by expiration from the lungs. The skin performs 
a very important part among the excretory organs in 
throwing off effete or worn out matter, for which pur- 
pose it is armed with an almost innumerable amount 
of little spiral tubes, the mouths of which we call pores 
of the skin. Their numbers are somewhat surprising 
to those who have given them but little thought. 
Every square inch of human skin contains about, 2, 800 
and the number of square inches of surface upon a 
man of ordinary size and height is 2,500, so the num- 
ber of these pores on the whole surfa ce of the body is 
7,000,000. 

Those little tubes, or ducts, are about one-fourth of 
an inch in length, so that the whole average extent of 
tubing is about 28 miles. Through these tubes and 
pores there is more or less exudation of moisture go- 
ing on from the first breadth of infancy to the last 
tottering steps of old age and to the last breath drawn. 

It is estimated that' for every seven pounds of food 
and drink taken into the stomach, five corresponding- 
pounds come out through the skin. 

From the long continued experiments of scientists, 
the conclusion has been reached that the average 
amount of this exhalation thrown out every 24 hours 



HUMAN BODY. 107 

is about 33 ounces. The refuse matter is gathered up 
by the blood vessels and conveyed to the skin by their 
minute ramifications and thrown out as above indicat- 
ed. 

A beautiful little experiment which indicates this 
constant transpiration is easily performed by placing 
the naked hand and arm into a deep glass jar and 
closing the aperature around the arm perfectly air 
tight, when the inside of the glass will soon be cover- 
ed with a vapor which will become more and more 
dense until it assumes the form of drops. 

Boerhaave says, "if the piercing chill of winter 
could be introduced into a summer assembly the in- 
sensible perspiration being suddenly condensed, would 
give to each person the appearance of a heathen diety 
wrapped in his own seperate cloud. ' ' 

With all this beautifully arranged mechanism from 
God's hand for the perfect discharge of important func- 
tional offices, can we for one moment believe that He 
ever designed that we should dare to thrust an irritant 
disorganizer into its composition ? All these intricate 
arrangements are impaired by the touch of alcohol. 
It clogs the excretory channels, creating diseased 
fats, irritates and inflames all the viscera of the 
body, degenerates and weakens them, deadens the 
sensibility of the vaso motor nerves which control the 
blood channels in the brain, overtaxes the heart's ac- 
tion and poisons the blood. 

The late Dr. Norman Kerr, a noted specialist in in- 
ebriety, consulting physician to the Dabrymple Ine- 
briate's Home, etc., said: "All the alcohol in the world 
will not contribute a drop of blood, a filament of nerve, 
a fibrilla of muscle, a spiculum of bone to the human 



108 ALCOHOL ON THE 

economy. On the contrary there is death in the cup, 
waste of strength, decay of substance, destruction of 
tissue, degradation of function, material death." 



^:< »s 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE AIR WE PREACH. 

Pure air is the breath of life; impure air is the 
breath of death. If we become concious of breathing 
it is pretty evident the air is not in good condition, or 
we are in some way physically wrong. 

Breathing vitiated are poisons the blood, and if to 
much extent and continued, it produces death, as in 
the striking case of the 140 Englishmen who were 
shut up in the black hole of Calcutta in 1756, when 
all but 23 died before the next morning for want of 
pure oxygenated air to breath. 

An ordinary sized man consumes about 45,000 cubic 
inches of oxygen, and throws out about 40,000 cubic 
inches of carbonic acid gas every twenty-four hours. 

How ridiculous and suisidal it is to spend one-third 
of one's life in a little non -ventilated seven by nine 
bed-room, as thousands are still doing. No wonder 
so many pale, sicken and die earley. How r many bed" 
rooms to-night will be carefully shut lest a breath of 
God's out door pure air shall find its way in. Night 
air is wholesome and every sleeping room should have 
a good supply of it. Every sick room should be well 
ventilated. 



HUMAN BODY 109 

The sleeping room should be one of the largest in 
the house. 

Plenty of fresh air night and day, good food in 
moderate quantities, full nights of sleep, abstinence 
from tight lacing and alcoholic stimulants, a cool head 
and warm feet give one a pretty sure passport to a 
ripe old age. 

In a former article I briefly referred to the process 
of re-oxygenation of the blood through the medium of 
the air inhaled, which, as there indicated, is composed 
of 21 parts of oxygen, 78 parts of nitrogen and one 
part of carbonic acid gas. 

As air is inhaled it contributes its oxygen to the 
blood and takes up carbonic acid gas which is de- 
posited along the way by combustion as previously 
described, and water which is impregnated with im- 
purities the blood has gathered up in its course, which 
is carried to the lungs and thrown out in the open 
air. Thus the explanation for our breath always 
being so moist, as shown when we breathe upon a 
polished metal plate or a glass mirror, and as illus- 
trated by condensation when we breathe out. in the 
cold air of winter. 

The losses which are taking place in the body con- 
sist of heat or force (energy), solid matters and water. 
Though the air we breathe contains water, it possesses 
much more when it is exhaled from the lungs. So 
also is a large quantity thrown out through the pores 
of the skin. 

Alcohol cannot replace this water-waste any more 
than it can the waste of solid bodily substances. The 
most essential and indispensable component part of 



110 ALCOHOL ON THE 

the air is its oxygen which changes the blood to its 
bright red color, indicative of purification. 

Confined carbonic acid gas to the amount of three 
or four per cent, acts as a narcotic poison, while if it 
were increased to one-twenty-fifth of the entire air 
present it would destroy life. Thus the necessity for 
nature's wise provision for eliminating it from the 
system. 

Breathe for a little time into an empty bottle, then 
cork it tightly for a few hours, and when opened it 
will emit an offensive odor indicating the decomposi- 
tion of animal matter that has been exhaled. 

By analytical chemists it is estimated that about 25 
per cent, of oxygen is given out from the air inhaled 
and about the same per cent, of carbonic acid gas ab- 
sorbed or taken up by it. 

To maintain a sound body it is necessary to keep 
the blood well aerated, that is, well oxygenated, that 
its channels may be clearly uninterrupted through 
which shall be conveyed suitable and requisite nourish - 
ment for bodily sustenance. For instance, the brain 
will not, can not perform its delicate and important 
functions in any degree of perfection if not co piously 
supplied with well oxygenated blood, Neither can 
the muscular system meet its demands under like cir„ 
cumstances. 

While food nourishes the muscles and sustains their 
force they are toned into action by the oxygen with 
which the blood supplies them. 

But perhaps no one of the viscera of the body suf- 
fers more when deprived of the requisite amount of 
oxygen than the lungs. 

Habitual drinkers of alcoholics are constantly draw- 



HUMAN BODY 111 

ing in full inspirations almost, oft times, to the over 
distention of the lungs, because the alcohol has robbed 
the blood of its oxygen to so great an extent. 

The drinker needs a free current of air and he often 
sleeps with his hands clasped over his head which 
gives the chest more freedom of expansion. The real 
physiological action is, that the presence of so much 
alcohol in the system retards the change of venous 
into arterial blood, (which process was explained in a 
former article) by its preventive influence upon the 
functional power of the blood for absorbing oxygen. 

Whenever alcohol is introduced into the system it 
greatly interferes with the oxygenation of the blood 
as well as with the process of assimilation of food. 

Steele in his tfygienic Physiology says: "The 
perfection of the organs of respiration challenges our 
admiration. So delicate are they that the least pres- 
sure would cause exquisite pain, yet tons of air surge 
to and fro through their intricate passages, and bathe 
their innocent cells. We yearly perform at least seven 
million acts of breathing, inhaling one hundred thou- 
sand cubic feet of air, and purifying over three thou- 
sand five hundred tons of blood, etc." 

Thus we see these wise provisions of nature and the 
intricacy of the beautiful mechanism which God has 
so wisely provided for the necessary adaptation of the 
elements of the air we breathe and the food we eat 
for the building up and reparation of the tissue 
wastes that are constantly going on in our bodies, and 
yet men in their ignorant or wilful blindness, or 
stupidity, will defile their bodies with alcoholic in- 
dulgences which poison and throw all the beautiful 
machinery of man's bodv into discord, as I have tried 



112 ALCOHOL ON THE 

to demonstrate in regard to their physiological effects, 
in prior articles. 

To preserve the system in good condition for the 
performance of its functional duties, it is very patent 
that strict abstinence from alcoholic liquors is not only 
wise but physiologically necessary. 

The stupid people who think liquor-drinking is bliss 
are not all dead yet. But the advocate of total abstin- 
ence is dubbed with Jthe sobriquet of fanatic, fool, 
crank, extremist, loony, narrow-minded, |bigot, etc. 
etc., and the whole English vocabulary has been ex. 
hausted in the use of adjectives for his illustrative 
epithets. 

The drink traffic has blighted many a nation and 
loaded it with an accumulation of direful miseries. It 
has clouded vhe proudest names and laid low the Cy- 
clopean, it has bowed the heads of many mighty 
statesmen in shame and disgrace. 

It has made itself the bitterest foe to state and 
church. The chnrch should meet it with a deter- 
mined opposition, an uncompromising purpose to 
resist its dastardly stings and give it no quarters. 

Outspoken and active opposition to the liquor traffic 
should be regarded in this day and age of the woild 
as one of the cardinal principles of every church in 
every land. 

But churches are oft times slow to act against the 
rum-seller's interests in fear of offending present and 
prospective pew-holders. 

A reverend gentleman of England has said: "Some 
people fancy that churches are merely fire insurance 
agencies, and that for a premium you can be by them 
secured against the 'wrath to come.' In the minds of 



HUMAN BODY. 115 

these last estimable and orthodox people it is a virtue 
to preach about the many mansions in the sky, and 
a crime to talk about the better housing of the poor 
on earth. It is an effort of sublime spirituality to 
rhapsodise over the pearly gates and golden streets, 
but the clear indication of a carnal mind and an un- 
regenerate heart to consider the slums or them that 
dwell therein. They love to think of the River of 
Life, flowing pure as crystal from the Great White 
Throne of God and of the Lamb ; they are shocked if 
you call to their recollection the River of Death, flow- 
ing black as hell from the open flood-gates of the 
brewery and the distillery and the public house. It 
is right and wise to impeach Balaam, denounce Eve, 
and open fire from an unmasked batten* of penny pop- 
guns upon 'extinct Satans, ' but to enter into a hand- 
to-hand encounter with real Satans. with blind ignor- 
ance, legalized oppression and political crime is a 
blasphemous endeavor to get God's will done on earth 
as it is in heaven." 

The church holds a power equaled by no other or- 
ganization, and would it, to its fullest extent, fulfill 
its mission, the rum oligarchy would soon be annihi- 
lated. Man} 7 branches of the church have awakened 
to the great importance of its bounden duty, and in 
conference, synods, assemblies, etc, have resolved 
and re-resolved, talked and prayed, all of which are 
right and praiseworthy, but they require action behind 
them, which to no very great extent has it yet 
materialized, for want of honest, earnest effort on the 
part of the masses. A few are nobly doing their duty, 
but the others — oh, — well— 

Let the united church awaken to her full responsi- 



114 ALCOHOL ON THE 

bility and power and we shall soon see the liquor 
traffic buried so deep below perdition that the devil 
in his wild frenzy will marvel at the change and in 
amazement wonder whither it has gone.. When the 
church fully arouses to the situation and unitedly 
enters into the contest, we shall see the beginning of 
the end. 



> < ?o 



CHAPTER XXI. 
nature's requisite for recuperation. 

We have seen that our bodies are constantly under- 
going changes in a continuous round of waste and 
repair, a constant fire or oxidation taking place, waste 
or worn-out matter being carried off, the outgo of 
which is supplied by the food we eat, from which all 
our strength and force are derived, by its particles 
being broken up, and with the magic aid of, or the 
combination with oxygen, the process is carried out, 
and life, strength and force supported. 

Different portions of the body require different kinds 
of building material to keep up its equipoise and 
physiological requirements. 

For instance, the tissues of the body contain a 
marked amount of nitrogen, consequently to keep 
them in a healthy condition for their functional duties, 
food containing nitrogenous properties, such as pota- 
toes, the juices of succulent plants, must be taken to 
contribute to the constant tissue- waste taking place. 
Such substances are easily and readily oxidized. 



HUMAN BODY. 115 

Chemists have no difficult}' in tracing "nitrogenous 
foods in their formation of tissue, and Liebig's Animal 
Chemistry frequently speaks of them as "the plastic 
elements of nutrition." 

Other nutriments containing carbon to keep up the 
heat and fatness of the body are required, such as sugar 
and fats, which entering into the composition of dif- 
ferent tissues, do a double duty in producing both heat 
and force. 

Mineral substances are also requisite, such as salt, 
phosphorus, lime, iron, etc. Salt enhances the secre- 
tion of some of the fluids of digestion; the system de- 
mands it, and man and the lower animals crave it. 

In Letheby's writings we are told that so great is 
the craving for it that among the Gallas on the coast 
of Sierra Leone, husbands will sell their wives, brothers 
their sisters, and parents their children to obtain it ; 
that it is used in the baptismal services of the Latin 
church, by the priest putting a pinch of it into the 
child's mouth accompanied with a saying, "Receive 
the salt of widsom, and may it be a propitiation to 
thee for eternal life." 

We all know how dumb animals crave it, and how 
far wild ones will travel to secure it from a lick. 

Phosphorus lends activity to the brain, lime com- 
mingling with acids contributes to the solidification cf 
the teeth and bones, while iron is utilized in the blood 
disks. Most of these are provided for in the fruits, 
seeds, vegetables, meat and bread we consume. 

Then how are all these elements brought into the 
proper state for assimilation, of which we know so 
little after all — merely what we can gather from flash- 
light glimpses of the Creator's works? 



116 ALCOHOL ON THE 

By the breaking up of the food particles and the ex- 
tracting their properties by nature's great chemical 
laboratory, so well fitted out with all the necessary 
implements, the digestive canal ; thence carried res- 
pectively to the different parts of the great origin 
original structure through the absorbent system of 
veins and lacteals and the general circulatory system 
of bloodvessels. 

Although we think we are wisely penetrating into 
the mysteries of nature and the composition of our 
own selves, we are able to comprehend a few only of 
the minor flash-lights of God's wisdom. Yet we have 
compassed enough to teach us better ways of living 
than the masses of mankind are following out. 

The Omniscient widsom displayed in the arrange- 
ment of the digestive apparatus alone, that great cur- 
vilinear channel extending from the mouth through 
the trunk of the body about thirty feet in length, is 
sufficient to demand and receive from us, a more 
reverential obedience to the laws governing the func- 
tional offices with which the Creator has no wisely 
endowed us. 

In the process of digestion and assimilation of food, 
a large amount of pure water is required, which is the 
real vehicle of circulation , the dissolvent of solid foods , 
and carries in solution the nutriment in the blood from 
point to point as required in the system, and washes 
away the refuse or effete matters. 

Thus we have been talking of nature's wise work- 
ings and demands with no vile intruder like alcohol to 
interfere with her regularity. Now for a moment let 
us compare the action of alcohol with that of water as 
just briefly noticed. , Alcohol does not assist in the 



HUMAN BODY 117 

assimilation of food to the use of the tissues, but un- 
like water it retards that process. It degenerates the 
blood cells, water does not. It promotes waste of 
force and irritates tissue, while water assists food in 
producing and keeping up force. Alcohol, unlike 
food, is never converted into nor assimilated with the 
component parts of any organ of the body; thus it is 
incapable of assisting in the building up or repairing 
any waste in the bodily organism. 

Another great evil produced by alcohol is its absorp- 
tion of water in its circulation through the system, 
for which it has a strong affinity, thus, in common 
parlance, drying the tissues, absorbing the bodily 
juices, and inflaming the general membraneous sys- 
tem, so these fluids really have to come to the rescue 
and mingle with the alcohol to weaken it and hurry it 
along in the general circulation until it becomes 
eliminated. 

Alcohol is a great drag-weight upon the public 
health, and yet there are theorists, in limited num- 
bers, who advocate the proposition that alcohol has 
an important value in a recuperative way, at least, 
and thus they fall under the wild delusion that it 
must needs be a reparative agent. Never was mortal 
man more deceived than with such an idea. 

That the different foods as classified are in their 
assimilation to some extent also interchangeable in 
their adaptation to the different bodily requirements, 
there is no doubt. 

It is most thoroughly established that alcohol does 
not produce a healthy growth of fat in the human 
organism, but quite the reverse. An increased de- 



118 ALCOHOL ON THE 

posit of fat under alcoholic indulgence is abnormal, is 
truly disease. 

Whenever healthy functional action is interfered 
with by alcohol, or otherwise, to the extent of in- 
creasing the adipose tissue, it is indicative of a dis- 
eased condition or imperfect nutrition. 

While an increased adipose accumulation is often 
desirable and beneficial when it is produced by nutri- 
ents, it is just as undeirable when produced by alco- 
hol, which does not develop muscle. 

A person ma3- increase greatly in avoirdupois by 
the growth of a fatty tumor, but nutriment would 
come in for no part in the development as a cause for 
the local change. A gentleman was once passing 
through a medical museum in compan)^ with one of 
the surgeons of the institution and came upon an im- 
mense glass jar containing an adipose tumor marked 
as weighing seventy-five pounds. The surgeon was 
asked how much the patient weighed without the' 
tumor, who answered, "ninety pounds." "Did you 
save the patient?" "No," said the surgeon, "but we 
saved the tumor." 

It may be asked, "why does alcohol hasten the pro- 
cess of degeneration and cause drinkers to become 
more fleshy and corpulent?" One of the principle 
reasons is that it prevents the removal of fatty glob- 
ules which accumulate in the blood, and hinders the 
elimination of waste matters from the cells and tissues 
of the bod}'. 

What is the remedy for all these evils? I answer, 
from a physiological standpoint, total abstinence from 
all intoxicating liquors. So long as men and women 



HUMAN BODY 119 

indulge in their use, so long will these direful result 
follows as inevitable consequences.* 



CHAPTER XXI. 

IS ALCOHOL NECESSARY IN THE TREATMENT OF DIS- 
EASE ? 

It is said of John Stewart Mill that he was once 
asked by a young lady friend to explain a certain per- 
plexing problem in social science, and after giving 
close attention to his clear expose of the matter in 
question, the young lady excitedly exclaimed, "Oh, 
Mr. Mill, how I envy your head, "when Mr. Mill 
quickly retorted, "And my dear young lady, how I 
envy your heart." 

To whom the young damsel instantly shot out the 
following rejoinder; "Since I envy you your head and 
you envy me my heart, it seems most fitting that head 
and heart should go into partnership." 

In due time the interests of the philosopher's head 
and the pupil's heart became identical. 

In the brief consideration of the important subject 
of this paper, the head and heart are called into an 
alliance. I am fully aware of the views of the ex- 
tremists in and out of the medical profession, and 
while I am radical upon the subject, and principled 
against alcohol in all its forms when empyrically 
used. I shall fearlessly propound my ideas as formed 
from over thirty years in the private practice of medi- 
*See Chapter 30. 



120 ALCOHOL ON THE 

cine, and much hospital and clinical observation from 
time to time. 

Among the poisons in remedical use in the hands 
of the medical profession are such leading articles as 
opium, morphine, aconite, chloral, strychinia, bella- 
donna, atropine, arsenic, prussicacid, nytroglycerine, 
nitric acid, digitalis, alcohol, etc., etc. 

Among the most dangerous in common use, ranks 
alcohol; its pernicious and far reaching effects cannot 
be discussed at any length in the brief space a 1 lotted 
to this article. I can only refer to it in few words as 
a necessary remedial agent in the treatment of dis- 
ease. As such do I believe it necessary? As a gen- 
eral remedial agent, as we so often find it in general 
use, my answer is most emphatically, No ! 

In extreme cases when a speedy excitant is requir- 
like any other poison drug it may be administered by 
a competent physician carefully directed. Upon this 
point I will speak more at length in a succeeding 
chapter. 

One of its first effects is over-excitement of the 
vascular and nervous system, an effect always to be 
guarded against in the treatment of disease. 

Under its influence, the brain, spinal cord and great 
ramifications of nerves branching out from them be- 
come deteriorated, leading to the worst forms of ner- 
vous derangements, results to be carefully avoided in 
the use of all drugs.* 

Each poison drug has its own specific effect upon 
some particular organ of the body, as for instance, 
strychina upon the spinal cord, arsenic upon the mu- 
cous membrane of the alimentary canal, mercury upon 

*See Chapters 6, 7, 16 & 30. 



HUMAN BODY 121 

the salivary glands and mouth, iodine upon the lymp- 
hatic glands, digitalis upon the heart, alcohol upon 
the brain, nerves, heart and blood vessels. Toward 
the brain and nerve centers, the most vital and im- 
portant functionary organs of all, alcohol seems t 
have special deadly designs. 

The physiological effects of this narcotic poison are 
precisely the same in large and small does in like ratio, 
and as it is never assimilated in the system, it is there 
as a foreign body and intruder. 

It never acts as a tonic, but simply as an excitant 
by its local irritant effect upon the nerve extremeties, 
soon followed by depression and enfeebled respiration, 
thus showing conclusively that it does not support 
animal force. 

Then again it disturbes the heart's action and in- 
terferes with the circulation of the blood by harden- 
ing its albumen, a condition to be dreaded in an}' form 
of diseases. 

By some physiologists alcohol is denominated a 
stimulant, and by others oill}' an irritant. As Sir 
Benjamin Brodie has wisely said, stimulants do not 
create nerve power; that they merely enable you as it 
were, to use up that which is left, and leave you more 
in need of rest than before. 

Dr. Lee Norris says: "Alcohol is never beneficial to 
a person in health, and no poison is more certain in 
its action then alcohol. 

Dr. Winter, an English physician, in a discussion, 
wrote some verses, of which the following was one. 

"Suppose we own that milk is good, 

And say the same of grass, 
The one for babes is only food 

The other for an ass, ' ' 



122 ALCOHOL ON THE 

Dr. Barden Smith sa}^s, ' 'The human race would be 
just as well if alcohol did not exist." 

Dr. N. S. Davis, a scientist of authority in this 
country, says, after an ample clinical field of observa- 
tion in both private and hospital practice for more 
than fifty years, and a continuous study of our medi- 
cal literature, I am prepared to maintain that the ratio 
of mortality from all the acute general diseases has in- 
creased in direct proportion to the quantity of alco- 
holic remedies administered during their treatment. 

How can we reasonably expect any other result from 
the use of an agent that so directly and uniformly di- 
minishes the cerebral, respirator}', cardiac and meta- 
bolic functions of the human body? Both the popular 
and professional beliefs in the efficacy of alcoholic 
liquids for relieving exhaustion, faintness, shock, etc., 
are equally fallacious. ' ' 

We have now, both in Europe and in this country, 
large hosiptals treating their thousands of cases with- 
out one drop of alcohol and with most satisfactory re- 
sults. In some hospitals whole wards have been divi- 
ded, some upon the old alcoholic treatment and others 
upon one entirely free from its use, and the percent- 
age without it was fully equal to that with it, and in 
some wards much greater. 

It is a dangerous experiment for a physician to 
prescribe alcohol as a curative agent in disease, and I 
am glad to announce that the medical fraternit3 T have 
at last arrived at a point when they are looking into 
the dangers of the practice, and hosts of leading minds 
are calling a halt in its use. Intemperance is the curse 
of all curses of modern civilization. So many have 
been, and so many are now addicted to the use of alco- 



HUMAN BODY. 123 



holies that a physician in prescribing it in illness little 
knows what a conflagration he maj' be kindling by 
applying the fuel to the lingering, latent spark hidden 
within his patient, then when other drugs will answer 
better he Is not excusable for the practice. 

Physicians should be wise, thoughtful and judicious 
and remember that they have not only the welfare of 
their patients at stake, but possibly, progeny yet to 
follow. They should never prescribe alcohol when it 
can be avoided, as it is more dangerous and more tre- 
acherous than either of the other poisons I first enu- 
merated. 

"Oh," you say, "are there times when it cannot be 
dispensed with?" Here is where, as a medical man, I 
am compelled to draw a median line. There are con- 
ditions which are difficult to bridge over without the 
immediate action of a diffusible stimulant, or as some 
may choose to term alcohol, an irritant, to excite the 
heart's action more quickly than can be accomplished 
with ammoniacs. But those instances are very, very 
rare, and then it is more the mechanical effect that is 
sought than a curative one; something else must be 
looked to for that end. But this should be only for 
a temporary relief when all else fails, as that is the only 
medicinal virtue it has. 

When a coucientious physician is (if ever) forced to 
its use in bridging over a chasm of sudden relapse or 
prostration, attended with apparently empty blood 
vessels he should do so with a mental protest, realizing 
that he is inevitably doing mischief in some other 
direction, and should not continue its use longer than 
a few minutes required to produce a rallying effect. 

Under no other circumstances do I consider alcohol 



124 ALCOHOL ON THE 

advisable as a remedical agent in the treatment of dis- 
ease. 

Physicians are not all exempt from yielding to the 
force of habit, and some have prescribed alcoholics so 
long, as a supposed remedy that they still go on in 
the old ruts, regardless of causes or effects. 

This is noticeable, not only in private practice, but 
also in many public institutions, such as some of our 
insane assylums where in many cases the patients have 
reached their unfortunate conditions through the 
drink habit, and yet the appetite is kept alive and 
fired up by the use of alcoholics permitted or pre- 
scribed. 

But thanks to the recognition of hygienic laws, and 
the light of the latter part of the nineteenth century 
leading to the improved treatment of disease at the 
present day, among hosts of our leading medical 
minds. 

Nowhere should the effects of alcohol be more closely 
observed, and its deleterious effects be guarded against 
than in insane asylums where the terrible effects are 
apparent. 

Dr. R. N. Bucke, Medical Superintendent of the 
Asylum for the Insane, London, Canada, in a report 
said, "As we have given up the use of alcohol, we 
have needed and used less opium and chloral; and as 
we have discontinued the use of alcohol, opium and 
chloral, we have needed and used less seclusion and 
restraint. I have, during the year just closed, care- 
fully watched the effect of the alcohol given, and the 
progress of cases where in formei years it would have 
been given, and I am morally certain that the alcohol 
used during the last year did no good. 



HUMAN BODY. 125 

With humiliation I am forced to admit that until 
within the recent past my noble profession has been, 
to an alarming extent, and is still too much so, inad- 
vertantly adding to the causes of drunkenness in the 
land, directiy cr indirectly, by the reckless and whole 
s°le manner in which so many of its members have 
prescribed alcoholic stimulants in their daly practice 
for all the aches and pains, argues and dances, coughs 
and colds, inflammations and consumptions, fevers and 
chills, at the hour of birth, at the time cf death, and 
at all intermediate points of life, to induce sleep, and 
to promote wakefulness, and for all the real and 
imaginary ills that come under the eyes of our great 
Aesculapian descendants. 

Let us stud}- the immediate effects and the remote 
results of the use of intoxicants, not alone in their 
physiological relatins, but in their moral bearings as 
well, and we shall see that physicians can aid greatly 
in obtaining a prohibitory check to the direful evil. 
They can and should do much to prevent drunkness 
in the generations yet unborn and those just in their 
infancy, by refraining from prescribing intoxicating 
drinks as medicine to enclente women and nursing 
mothers. 

All recognize the easy transmission from mothers to 
children of different traits and peculiarities, yet some 
physicians will thoughtlessly prescribe, and women 
will as thoughtlessl}* drink these poisonous beverages, 
and then wonder why the little one grows up to be a 
drunkard. 

When she who is to become a mother complains to 
her family physician of weakness and various bad feel- 
ings, he, thoroughly concientious in other respects, 



126 ALCOHOL ON THE 

and a Christian man, perhaps, carelessly recommends 
a little brandy, a little bourbon, a daily glass of wine, 
or porter, ale, or stout to be taken with the dinner, 
and thus the embryo child is fed upon these intoxi- 
cants even before he is ushered into the world. 

Again the mother who is nursing her infant tells 
her physician that her strength is gone, that her milk 
is poor and insufficient for the nourishment of the 
babe, and unhesitatingly, in many instances, comes 
the order that she shall increase its richness and flow 
by the use of beer or some other alcoholic compound. 

The result is that the baby is never sober from the 
earliest period of its existence until it is weaned. 

Medical men should take into consideration the 
physiological action of alcohol upon the human S3 T stem 
with more thought than has generally been given it by 
the masses, and we should guard our prescriptions as 
carefully as we would those of any other poisons, 
which, in their places, are valuable adjuncts to our 
materia medica. 

Did space permit, I should like to take up some- of 
the leading diseases that come under the daily obser- 
vation of the medical practitioner and analize the ef- 
fects of alcohol upon them. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

ALCOHOL IN MEDICAL PRACTICE. 

In years gone by the great majority of physicians 
leaned upon alcoholics as the sheet anchor of hope in 



HUMAN BODY. 12 T 

all emergencies in which a stimulus was required, re- 
gardless of the real physiologicai effects produced 
thereby. The practice became a general hobby and 
alcohol was played as the trump card. 

No matter what may have been the necessities for 
the use of alcohol in the past, the best learned in the 
profession to-day are independent of it as a remedial 
agent, as there are now at hand various drugs with 
which the well-informed practitioner is familiar, that 
will give him all the beneficial results formerly ex- 
pected from the alcohol family, without leaving be- 
hind them the direful effects that so often remotely 
followed alcoholic prescriptions. 

The knowledge of these restoratives will enable a 
physician to tide over any case which alcohcl could 
ever have done, leaving the patient free from any in- 
jurious effects of the remedy, no danger of alcoholism 
following, as so frequently observed in the past. 

One thing I have for years observed, that many of 
the physicians using alcoholics as remedial agents were 
addicted to the use of the devil in solution themselves. 
Of course that could not be laid down as the rule, for 
there were hosts of conscientious practitioners who 
who were using them for want of better weapons. 
They are always abstemious. 

But to-day there is no excuse for taking the risk of 
the deleterious results for the little good that can be 
obtained, as we have no many other and safer reme- 
dies, excepting as indicated in foregoing paragraphs. 

Medical men should avoid the use of devil water in 
their practice. 

When such learned practitioners as Prof. N. S. 
Davis, Dr. Richardson and hosts of like men of re- 



128 ALCOHOL ON THE 

nown tell us they have found no disease that they can- 
not treat more successfully without, than with in- 
toxicating liquors, it is about time lesser lights begin 
to look a little at what they are doing. 

So long as there is a class of physicians who deal 
out whiskey and brandy to their patients, jusv so long 
will new drunkards be coming to the front. 

Beer drinkers do themselves double harm, which 
spirit drinkers partially escape. Beer guzzles flush 
their blood vessels with the miserable slush, and in 
addition to the usual damaging effects consequent 
upon drinking distilled spirits they also get the wear- 
ing effects upon the heart caused by this deluging 
practice, which overloads the blood vessels and so 
often leads to diseases of the heart from the over 
labor thrust upon it, increasing its functional duties 
in the way of equalizing the redundancy. 

Dr. Albert Day, superintendent of Washington 
Home, Boston, tells us he has treated nearly seven 
thousand cases of inebriet)^, and eight-tenths of them 
were the products of wine and malt liquor drinking. 

Men are strange creatures and are ingenious in 
inventing excuses for evil practices. Were they as 
diligent in seeking for reasons for living abstemious, 
respectable, honorable and virtuous lives, what a dif- 
ferent home this old world would be to us. 

But lo, men drink for joy when the little ruddy 
young spiieaker is born into the world, drink over the 
baptismal rities, drink over the marriage festivities, 
drink over the funeral obsequies, drink to keep out 
cold, drink to ward off heat, drink at the fountain 
of political success, drink over political defeat, drink 
to ward off disease, drink to drown sorrow, drink to 






HUMAN BODY 129 

stimulate to deeds of darkness, drink for sociability, 
drink when the}' meet, drink when the)' part, drink 
privately, drink publicly, drink to arouse the animal 
passions, and God alone knows for what reasons the 
knight of the bottle does not drink. 

Dr. Benjamin Rush says he has known many per- 
sons destroyed by ardent spirits who were never com- 
pletely intoxicated during the whole course of their 
lives. 

Every time one person treats another to a drink of 
alcoholics he is tempting him to become a toper, a 
guzzler, a drunkard. No one ever became a drunkard 
without taking his first glass, which led on to occa- 
sional drinking called moderation, then to inebriation. 

Show me the drunkard of to-day and I will show 
you the boastful moderate drinker of not long ago. 
The moderate use of alcohol never rescued an}' one 
from the habit of drunkenness, but it has led myriads 
through the dark pathway down the road to ruin and 
damnation. 

Drink ruins character, blunts intellect, changes in- 
dustry into indolence, destroys family ties, makes 
wives widows and children paupers, incites sensuality 
and moral corruption, poisons the blood, degenerates 
the body, impoverishes the mind and damns the soul, 
and there is no crayon black enough to picture the 
darkness of the deeds that follow in its wake as the 
direct results of this world-wide diabolical curse, 
which destroys more men and women in this country 
in every half decade than our civil war did during 
its continuance. 

Horace Mann once said: That some live long in 
spite of moderate drinking, no more proves the prac- 



130 ALCOHOL ON THE 

tice safe and healthful than the fact that some soldiers 
who fought through all Napoleon's wars are still alive 
proves fighting to be a vocation conducive to longevity. 

It is a statistical fact that about one-fourth of the 
insanity of the present day is the outgrowth of the 
drink habit. 

Again, if there be any one common result of the tap 
worship among the loungers of the groggeries it is 
laziness, both mental and bodily. 

Where in the wide, wide world can be found more 
indolence and stupidity than among the daily guzzlers 
who loiter around the miserable licensed grog shops of 
the day ? The} 7 are no places in which to look for 
brilliancy, they never brighten one's ideas, but the 
contra effect is produced. As well might you look 
for a horn from a Wall Street bull, or feature from 
the face of nature, as to look among such a company 
of loungers for increasing intellect, morals, refinement, 
purity of thought, industry or ambition. 

Woe to the young man who allows himself to be- 
come a grog-shop lounger. Dr. Adam Clark has said 
that strong drink is not only the devil's way into a 
man but it is man's way to the devil. 



♦ >»< ♦ 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

ALCOHOLIC DOSING. 

Since the earliest period of time, error has combat- 
ted truth, and has often supplanted it. Error has 



HUMAN BODY 131 

long been the leading feature in quackery applied to 
treatment of disease. 

It is strange that in this enlightened day and age of 
the world that some so-called temperance people, bit- 
terly opposed to alcoholic beverages because of their 
deleterious effects upon the human system, act as if 
they believe alcohol to be a wonderful panaca for 
nearly every ill to which flesh is heir, and often the 
only thing that will promote health in times of ail- 
ment or save life in the hour of dissolution. 

To a great extent it might be supposed that the old 
practice of the medical fraternity had been based 
largely upon that theory, judging from their habitual 
stereotyped prescriptions containing alcoholics for 
nearly all the maladies that came under their notice. 

The results of that thoughtlessness, carelessness, 
indifference, or ignorance as to causes and effects 
along those lines have been most dangerous and dam- 
aging. 

But the medical profession at last has gotten its 
eyes open and science is eclipsing ignorance, and alco- 
holics are fast being abandoned by our leading prac- 
titioners. 

The time has come when every layman even, should 
know that alcohol retards digestion, impairs the respi- 
ratory functions, lowers animal heat, mingles with 
the blood in its circulation and poisons its corpustles, 
and lessens the vital forces of the bod}*. 

Hanging to the skirts of former days, ignorent 
mothers and nurses still resort to remedies containing 
a large per cent, of alcohol for all aches and pains or 
ills of an}* kind complained of, from the old grand- 
father in the family to the nursing infant. 



132 ALCOHOL ON THE 

One of the most baneful practices is that of using 
alcoholic remedies or medicines as family specifics. 
This practice, I am sorry to Fay, is prevalent even 
among some so-called temperence people. 

Always having a stock of domestic remedies on 
hand well fortified with alcohol. As a medical man I 
look upon this as being one of the most pernicious 
provisions that can curse a family. 

Of course it is very wise for mothers to have a few- 
domestic remedies on hand, but they should scrupu- 
lously avoid all alcoholics, for at least two reasons. 

First, they do not arrest nor aire disease, but do of- 
ten accelerate it. Second, they do, many times, lay 
the foundation for future lives of dissipation. 

Avoid quack nostrums, so many of which contain 
alcohol. The idea, for instance of dosing a babe with 
some kind of soothing compound which contains al- 
cohol and crediting it with the benificent effect of 
quieting the little restless mortal and perhaps easing 
it from pain, when in fact it has simply made the baby 
drunk and he couldn't help being quiet. 

What more than that ? If the father be adicted to 
strong drink (or the mother), that will fan the latent 
inherited fire to a future blaze which may sear his 
soul and possibly end his life in a felon's cell. 

Let nostrums alone and send for a physician who 
knows something outside of a brandy bottle. 

LIFE INSURANCE AUTHORITIES 

''The habitual spirit drinker," says a well written 
treatise on life insurance, "and especially one who 
was found to take strong drinks early in the day, 
ought to be declined altogether. ' ' 

It declares in strong terms against insuring even 



HUMAN BODY 133 

wine or beer drinkers, though the habit may not 
shorten life, as it puts it, but that almost any "degen- 
erate condtion of the body " may be induced by it. 

None are more close observers than the medical ex- 
perts in life insurance companies, and no physiologists 
are more careful in their deductions than those em- 
ployed by those companies. 

The results of their researches fully corroborate the 
opinions of others, to whose reports I make reference 
in these articles. Their observations are not con- 
fined to the male population, but they find what all 
medical men more or less understand, that the vice of 
dram-drinking exists to an alarming extent among fe- 
males, and in many instances in the so-called best 
families. 

Scarcely a well educated physician, who is not him- 
self a drinker, can be found, but will admit that ex- 
cess in drinking is a frequent direct and indirect cause 
of fatal illness. 

Alcohol, in common parlace, seems to have an es- 
pecial desire to attack and injure the nerveous system, 
as we almost invariably find that portion of the anato- 
mical make-up ruthelessly invaded by the deceptive 
intruder. 

From an investigation on that point we find that 
while a little over fifteen per cent, of deaths in the 
population at large are produced by diseases of the 
nerveous system and digestive organs, they cause 
something over fifty per cent, of all the deaths among 
the intemperate. 

From the age of twenty-one to thirty the mortality 
in the upper classes exceeds five times that of the 



134 ALCOHOL ON THE 

general community, and in the next twenty years 
thereafter it is more than four times greater. 

Physiological science reveals to us that while intem- 
perance is the direct cause of great mortality, it is far 
less so than in its indirect influence in increasing the 
fatality of other diseases. No man with alcoholized 
blood can withstand any acute disease, as can a total 
abstainer. This is not a simple matter of opinion, 
but a well established fact, founded upon the closest 
scientific observations the civilized world over. 

The victims of pneumonia, small-pox, yellow fever, 
cholera, and a long line of kindred diseases, when at 
all severely attacked, are almost always certain to suc- 
comb to their influence. 

Nearly all the recoveries in epidemics of cholera 
and yellow fever, are among the non-drinkers of alco- 
holic stimulants, while the drinkers are more liable to 
their attacks, nearly as an hundred to one. Vengence 
is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

" KNOW 'THYSELF." 

The above admonition was inscribed upon the ora- 
cle of Delphos by the ancient sages and philosophers. 

How appropriately they can also be applied in this 
day and age of the world. 

In these degenerate days, when man rushes head- 
long down the avenues of life as if God had created 
him of iron and steel, regardless of his beautifully 



HUMAN BODY. 135 

constructed organism, how befitting such a warning. 
' ' Know thyself. ' ' 

There are few things of which we know less than 
of ourselves. Man is constructed upon the most per- 
fect mechanical, chemical and dynamic principles. 

All his mental, moral and physical natures are gov- 
erned by fixed and immutable laws which cannot be 
trampled upon without the following of a penalty, 
from which there is no escape. 

Men go limping, halting, hobbling along life's jour- 
ney with diseased blood, diseased bodily organs, dis- 
torted limbs, their joints fairly echoing the crack of 
the champagne bottle that has brought them down to 
this untimely decript condition, their bloated faces, 
rheumed eyes, and livid countenances, indicating that 
they have not observed God's laws, but, as some writ- 
er says, have loaned their stomachs for a vinter's 
cesspool, or yielded it to the contaminating influence 
of the poisons of alcohol or tobacco. Oh, man ! 
k ' Know thyself. ' ' 

How strange are man's reasonings with regard to 
himself. He reasons, for instance — that alcoholic 
drinks warm him in winter and cool him in summer, 
and strengthen him for laborious exercise and expos- 
ure. If he knew himself as he should, he would un- 
derstand the fact, that whenever alcohol in any form 
is taken into the system it interferes with the action 
of the heart and blood vessels, and thus w T ith the 
natural arrangements in the body for equalizing its 
temperature. 

While the beer or whiskey drinker is actually weak- 
ened by his drinks, the water drinker by his side is 
capable of doing more labor, and of longer indurance ; 



136 ALCOHOL ON THE 

for the simple reason that in violent exercise, especi- 
ally in hot weather, the body becomes internally heat- 
ed, and but for nature's safety-valves being thrown 
open for the escape of perspiration, the worker would 
suffer and die. 

The perspiration is simply the watery portion of 
the blood thrown out to evaporate upon the surface 
of the body and thus cool it. To keep up this supply 
in the blood, water must be taken into the stomach 
for absorption, thus providing for a free perspiration 
that must not be checked, which nature provides for 
comfort and safety. 

The whiskey or beer drinker's potations irritate the 
blood vessels and heart, lessen the perspiration, and 
thus he cannot endure the heat with his water drink- 
ing comrade. 

All know that the circulation of the blood is carried 
on by the action of the heart, and nothidg can be 
more beautiful and perfect than the rates of the heart's 
pulsations, and the respiratory movements of the 
lungs which are arranged to correspond and assist 
each other in their functional duties, and to regulate 
themselves to the necessities and demands for blood 
and air, more or less, being increased by day and re- 
duced by sleep and quiet by night. 

All this harmonious regularity is governed by a 
system of nerves called the vasso motor system, which 
are distributed all along the walls of the blood vessels 
to command contraction and expansion as require- 
ments are made. 

When a muscle is at rest it requires much less 
blood than when it is brought into active exercise. 

The more blood that nature calls for the more is 



HUMAN BODY 137 

the air that is required to supply it with oxygen, thus 
the heart and blood vessels on the one hand, and the 
lungs on the other, are adapted to the necessities of 
circumstances. 

For health all this goes on with wonderful precis- 
sion, and any interference with it does harm and 
throws them out of this regularity. So when alco- 
holic drinks are indulged in they are disarranging 
agencies by disturbing the action of the heart and re- 
laxing the small, or capillary blood vessels whicli 
then become unnaturally distended with blood, espe- 
cially in the skin. Thus the argument that it warms 
one so nicely. 

Warmth and exhileration are among the first effects 
experienced on taking alcoholic drinks; thus the erro- 
neous idea that they really make one warmer. 

That glow is simply the result of the small or capil- 
lary vessels of the skin becoming weakened and re- 
laxed, allowing an undue amount of blood to circu- 
late through those especially near the surface, so the 
feeling of w T armth. 

But in that change the internal portion of the body 
at the same time becomes cooled by the exchange and 
in a little time the temperature of the bod)* is une- 
qualized, and a sense of weakness and depression fol- 
lows, especially in very cold exposure. 

While the nerveous system is at first keyed up, so 
to speak, it too soon lags with a like depression, and 
the drinker not infrequently suffers for his ignorant 
and foolish practice. " i 

It is a well authenticated fact that abstainers can 
endure more fatigue, in any climate, than can even a 
beer drinker. In the frigid temperature of the arctic 



138 ALCOHOL ON THE 

regions it is so; in the sunny climes of the tropics it 
is so, and anywhere between those points it is so. 
Drinker, " Know thyself." 

In succeeding chapters I shall more fully explain 
these pathological points under their appropriate ti- 
tles. 



♦ >* o 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

AN HUNDRED YEARS (NATURE'S LAWS.) 

The nearer we live as nature seems to have ordained 
the nearer shall we come to reaching an hundred 
years. 

No physiologist will deny that over-heating, stimu- 
lating, or irritating substances taken into the stomach 
will produce derangement of the whole body. Par- 
ticularly does this apply to alcoho 1 ic stimulants, which 
irritate not only the mocous membranous lining of 
the stomach, but all the organs of the bod}", as, by 
absorption, they reach every fiber and poison them as 
they pass. As the consumption of the vital powers 
and increased arterial and muscular action are in- 
duced, the heart is called upon for extra work, and 
all the organs of the body are thrown out of harmony 
into discord. 

At every such turn of the great wheel of our inter- 
nal machinery an extra wear and tear of vital econo- 
my is an inevitable result. It is one barrier in the 
way of nature in her effort to carry out her own de- 
signs to continue life to its natural and fullest extent. 



HUMAN BODY 139 

By careful living and perfect abstinence from all al- 
coholics, there is no reason why one born into the 
world free from hereditary taint should not reach the 
hundredth year, unless prevented by accident, in a 
bright and happy mood. 

But a centenarian is a wonder, and should he reach 
ten years more he could draw a good salery in any 
dime museum as a living curiosity. There are some 
who live on to those ages, and almost without excep- 
tion, they are found to be those whose sj T stems have 
never been stung with the touch of alcohol. 

In 1757 there died in England, a man in his 144th 
year. He had from boyhood been a laborer, until he 
became a soldier for some years. He subsequently 
returned to his native place and resumed his old occu- 
pation as a laborer. He never knew what sickness 
was until he passed his centennial. Eight days be- 
fore his death, at nearly 144, he walked three miles. 

The reason given for his long life, was his syste- 
matic living and total absenence from aloholics. 

Later on it has been reported by best authority that 
very recently there lived at an Indian village in Cali- 
fornia, a number of Indian women who were beyond 
their 130th year. 

Dr. Remondino recently reported a female Indian 
living in southern California, 126 years old, whom he 
has seen carrying six watermellons tied up in a blan- 
ket, a distance of two miles, 

A few miles below Sandiago, was reported an old 
Indian who was thought to be 140 years old, out every 
day exercising. Another 115 years old, a great walk- 
er, who would walk fifty miles to the mountain to 
gather a bag of acorns. A missionary there who 



140 ALCOHOL ON THE 

knew him, vouched for their abstemious lives, simple 
living and strictly temperate habits. 

In the town of my boyhood days, there lived a near 
neighbor, an industrious shoemaker; I knew him for 
more than forty years, he was hearty, robust, clear- 
complexioned, straight as a boy when he was in his 
nineties. Never drank intoxicants, seldom ever wore 
an overcoat even in mid -winter. I never knew him 
ill. 

The last time I ever saw him, he was in a village 
seven miles from his home, where I then lived, on a 
bitter cold morning, having driven thither with a 
horse and lumber wagon, to take home some mer- 
chandise, coat not buttoned, no overcoat on, and I 
asked him why he did not wear one; he replied, " I 
am warm enough without one, I don't need one," 

I asked him how old he was, and with a pleasant 
smile I so well remember, he promptly answered: " I 
have passed my ninety-fourth year, hale and hearty 
as a boy." "Well," I said, "you haven't burned 
your stomach out with whiskey." Again, with a 
smile of satisfaction I shall never forget, he replied: 
" No sir, I never had any use for it, I let nature take 
care of my stomach and I help along by obeying her 
laws. ' ' 

Oh ! that every man would so live as to be a monu- 
ment of prolonged life as a reward for total abstenence 
and correct living. 



HUMAN BODY. 141 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

TOTAL ABSTENENCE SOLDIERS. 

In the British army much attention has been given 
to L he effects of strong drink upon the soldiers. 

For experiment some divisions were allowed alco- 
holic liquors, while others were rigorously deprive^ 
of them, and in every instance the coolness, staying 
powers, vigor and watchfulness were greatly increased 
in the abstaining divisions. These results induced 
the War Department not to allow any liquor to be 
used in the soudan camp except for hospital prescrip- 
tions. 

At one time Sir Herbert Kitchner forbade the use 
of intoxicating liquors among his soldiers and at the 
great battle of Atbara, when the English achieved 
such a glorious victor)-, the Highlanders inarched 
across the plane in the face of the dervish zereba amid 
furious storms of leaden hail, over the scorching des- 
ert under that equatorial burning sun, calm, collected, 
in perfect order and with unbroken ranks as if out on 
dress-parade. Thus their brilliant victory. 

All due to the fact that the drinks in that army, 
from the general to the drummer-boy, were restricted 
to tea and oatmeal water. 

In the civil war in the United States, Cen. Dix, 
who was in command of New York harbor in 1863, 
found the death rate among his soldiers ran up~to an 
average of 30 per cent. 

With his keen perception he took in the situation 
and traced the effect to its cause, and without hesi- 



112 ALCOHOL ON THE 

tancy ordered that no rations of whiskey should be 
dealt to his men, when the mortality soon fell to 12 
per cent. 

In the Soudan campaign, alcoholic beverages were 
discarded by most of the commanding generals, and 
Gen. Havelock's brave soldiers exhibited masterly 
feats in their long marches and fights in the Indian 
Rebellion, with no whiskey rations, but simply on cof- 
fee as a beverage. Finally in the Soudan the Sirdar 
enforced prohibition of all alcoholic liquors. A large 
quantity, several hundred barrels of beer was sent in 
from Cairo by a trader, for speculative purposes, 
which was quickly consigned to the river. 

The improvement in the appearance and condition 
of the soldiers was the subject of general comment, 
and the mortality from fever was greatly lessened af- 
ter the exclusion of alcoholic liquors, 

Rum rations were strictly prohibited in the Kaffir 
war of 1877 and 1878. and the good health of the sol- 
diers was a surprise and was fully credited to the ab- 
stinence from intoxicating liquors. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

RIGHTLY BORN CHILDREN. 

So long a licensed drink dives exist so long will 
children be born into the world wrongly constitnted, 
f o long as children are begotten of tainted parentage 
so 'ong will mankind be infected with drunkenness, 

" x "kSee Chapter 32. 



HUMAN BODY. 143 

idiocy, scrofula, cancer, kleptomania, syphilis and 
hosts of other inherited curses, verifying the law of 
God, that the sins of the parents will be visited upon 
the children. 

That like begets like is a fixed law of nature modi- 
fied only by education and the most favorable sur- 
rounding circumstances. 

That inebriated parentage is one of the most fruit- 
ful sources, one of the worst pestilential hot-beds, one 
of the most rank and vile nurseries of these tainted, 
rotten and corrupt mental and moral curses that in- 
flict the human family, observation and statistics bear 
uncontroverted testimony. 

The following numerical compilation of tabulated 
facts was brought out by Professor Belman of Bonn 
relative to the career of a notorious drunkard, a wom- 
an, who was born in 1740 and died in 1800. Her de- 
cendents numbered 834, of whom 709 were traced 
from their youth. Of these, seven were convicted of 
murder, 76 of other crimes, 142 were professional beg- 
gars, 64 lived on charity, and 181 women in the line 
of decendents lived disreputable lives. 

The family cost the German government for main- 
tenance and expenses in courts, almshouses and pris- 
ons, no less than $1,250,006, an average of a mere 
fraction less than $1,500 each. 

What a history for a mother, a grandmother, a 
great grandmother, etc. And yet hosts of similar in- 
stances can be found to-day, the frightful results of 
our accursed, vile liquor traffic. 

That alcoholism of women plays an alarming role in 
what ma)' be called artificial deterioration, reacting 
upon the proper development of the offspring, leading 



144 ALCOHOL ON THE 

to the lowering of the family stock, in common pax- 
lace, scientific investigations and observations have 
fully demonstrated. 

Until the day when children can be born right, in 
the pure atmosphere of moral homes, fiom viituous, 
abstemious progenitors, we cannot wonder at such re- 
sults and must look for more to come. 

A drunken parent is far more than likely to curse 
the world with drunken offspring. That inebriety is 
a legecy to children from drinking parents even to the 
second and third generation, and that few children 
of such parentage can be found who do not at least 
experience a craving desire for lipuor, is an indisputa- 
ble fact. 

Records teem with instances where whole families of 
boys and girls have become drunkards through inheri- 
tance from drinking father and mother. 

Oh, for the purifying influence of model homes, the 
cradles of virtue. The very thought of a pure home 
in its highest sense thrills the heart with new aspira- 
tions and cheers the wayfarer in his lonely wander- 
ings. How can a man desecrate his home? 

An inherent thief will almost surely inflict upon so- 
cioty a thief or thieves in his offspring. 

That the brain and nerve centers are strongly in- 
fluenced by external causes, impressions that are life- 
long, more or less, forming a strong controlling power 
in shaping the lives of individuals, is a well known 
physiological fact. 

Couple with those effects the surrounding, contami- 
nating influences under which persons are likely to 
fall, weaknesses cultivated in the saloon of to-day, we 
can eaaily account for the alarming extent of drunk- 



HUMAN BODY 145 

enness and licentiousness both in high and low society 
in these days of increasing degeneracy. 

These facts by no means argue that drunkenness, 
thievery, etc., exist only as the result of heredity. 
Far from it; but they do establish the fact that ff all 
children were born right, and carefully reared, it 
would go a long way toward eradicating these evil 
curses from the world. 

Hosts and hosts of these unfortunates are to be seen 
daily who have acquired their habits from evil and 
corrupt associations, taking on new impressions that 
become indelibly stamped upon the brain and nerve 
centers and they are thrown into the same deplorable 
conditions as the former class, with their nerve bat- 
teries so changed by the constant influence under 
which they have fallen that they become adapted in 
every way to the new conditions, and over the border- 
line of safet3' the}* go. The time for decisive action 
has come. But 

'Deeper than thunder on summer's first shower, 
On the dome of the sky God is striking the hour; 
Shall we falter before that we've prayed for so long, 
When the wrong is so weak and the right is so strong ?" 

It has become an alarming fact that both in this 
country and in Europe, the drink habit is fast increas- 
ing among the female population. In our country, 
saloons, and in Europe licensed confectioners' shops 
are fitted up especially for female patronage. Among 
the lower classes in Europe, friends drop in to see 
each other socially and have a little chat over a cup of 
tea which is well charged with devil water which is 
available at the licensed grocers. So we see the de- 
mand is created by the supply, not the supply by the 



1-16 ALCOHOL ON THE 

demand. In some of our own cities palatial " drink- 
ing parlors " are fitted up in gorgeous array for tip- 
pling women to frequent. These increased facilities 
for pleasure drinking are fast dragging down our 
women, not by any means among the lower classes 
only, but among the higher and refined, and the me- 
dium classes between. 

Under this condition of things God alone can tell 
what is to be the outcome of such a motherhood. 

Already medical observers have discovered that 
drinking motherhood is the fruitful source of greatly 
increased infant mortality, at the rate of about two 
and a half times more than among children of abstem- 
ious mothers in the same ranks of life. Among the 
little survivors the vitality of the little dependents is 
very materially lessened. In the list of following dis- 
asters we find weakened minds, a lowered intelligence, 
enfeebled constitutions and not infrequently cases of 
idiocy, epilepsy and sometimes insanity, directly trace- 
able to drinking maternity. 

Another fearful result is often met by physicians in 
the lying-in chamber, dead-born progeny. 

Druken conception is one of the most damnable re- 
sults of liquor indulgencies. That parental alcohol- 
ism produces mental degeneracy in the issue is a well- 
established physiological certainty. 

One other fact noted in a former chapter, should at 
least have a passing notice at this juncture. It is the 
wicked practice of nursing mothers imbibing alcohol- 
ics, the poisonous and deteriorating effects of which 
so often meet the eye of the physician, leading to ner- 
vous degeneracy of the little one as it tugs at the hu- 
man beer bottle in the mother's bosom, leading to de- 



HUMAN BODY. 147 

fective nutrition and a host of entailed maladies and 
too often in later years, to drunkenness itself. 

The procreation of offspring by drunken parentage 
not only entails the above-cited punishments upon the 
innocent children, but ofttimes throws them upon so- 
ciety as an incubus, sometimes of a dangerous char- 
acter. 

God has given man the world for his great harvest 
field and pleasure garden and endowed him with won- 
derful physical and mental abilities- Then are we 
not responsible for the well-borning of the little ones 
that Jesus said " suffer to come unto me?" 

Woe to the people, or to the man, or to the woman 
who bids defiance to God's immutable laws or attempts 
to trample them under foot, or by yielding to the fiery 
impulses of appetite and passions, for they will hurl 
him into inevitable ruin. 

The infant is born in blank ignorace, irresponsible 
for its condition, surroundings or inheritance. He is 
conscious of nothing save a few sensations, yet he is 
in direct relation with God, who has incorporated him 
into the realm of nature. 

Could the female drunkard be suppressed the lon- 
gevity of her offspring would be greatly increased. 
But so long as her habits of inebriety continue, so 
long in like ratio will her young be born into the 
world more and more degenerate. 

The foetus in utero which is living and developing 
upon the blood of the prospective mother, cannot be 
well born if the blood is charged with such a diffusa- 
ble poison as alcohol. That the germ plasm is affect- 
ed by the poison to a degree of incomplete develop- 
ment of the offspring, is beyond contradiction. 



US ALCOHOL ON THE 

A true mother is tender and careful of her offspring- 
even in the embroyotic period of its existence. If 
there be any one agency this side of the infernal re- 
gions, or in the realms of the damned, that can unfit 
woman for motherhood, it is rum. 

That inebriety, like a hoard of diseases following in 
its wake, is stamped as an hereditary taint upon the 
drinker's progeny, is a throughly established fact, 
substantiated by the highest authority in this and 
other lands. The mother and the embryotic forma- 
tion are so closely confederated in their circulatory ex- 
istence that one may well wonder if a perfectly healthy 
child could be born into the world from a drinking 
mother, or on the other hand, as an offspring from a 
drinking father. 

A drinking father or mother not only inflicts physi- 
cal injury upon himself on herself, but entails enfee- 
bled nerves, misery, disease and often premature 
death upon the innocent progeny with the added 
curse of a drinker's appetite. Thus children are born 
into the world devoid of the finer feelings which their 
birthright naturally demands, intellect clouded, effete 
in blood, with brain and mental qualities impaired. 
Thus the little innoeent sufferer starts out in life han- 
dicapped in all its future natural avocations, because 
of its not being rightly born. Who can conceive of a 
greater curse in the eyes of God or man ? 

No wonder that childhood is dwarfed, depleted, 
weakened, diseased, abnormal and corrupt of blood, 
when ushered into the world by drinking maternity, 
or begotten by a drunken father. God's messengers 
and sentinals are ever at their posts of duty and every 



HUMAN BODY 149 

edict is carried out and executed in obedience to His 
unchangeable laws. 

In one of the hospitals of Switzerland it is recorded 
that forty-five per cent, only, of the children born of 
drinking parentage had good constitutions, while in 
total abstaining families the per cent, was eighty-two, 
and in the children of confirmed inebriates, but six 
per cent, were healthy. 

Children not well born soon show their inherited 
idiosyncrasies in appetites, passions and general de- 
pravity. 

Of all the agencies that corrupt the character in the 
budding time of life, blighting prospects and happi- 
ness, the fountain head is found in appetites and pas- 
sions. 

When we go back and read the history of the Moab- 
ites and Amorites, where the highest pleasures of the 
people were governed by appetite and lasciviousness, 
one almost feels a disgust for his own being. 

Should we not be compelled to have our children 
well born ? Their future, both in this world and in 
the next, depend largely upon pure birth and health- 
ful education. 

Oh. that we might elevate our race to bodily sound- 
ness, mental and physical purity, Intemperance and 
concupiscence procreate the vilest of sins and anti- 
manhood. 

One of the surest safeguards toward the right horn- 
ing of children is found in the carefully selected com- 
panionship in marriage. Oh ! that every young man 
would turn a cold shoulder to every tippling young 
lady, and every 3 T oung lady would resolutely discard 



150 ALCOHOL ON THE 

every drinking young man, and I would couple the 
use of tobacco with it. 

How much misery and wretchedness is entailed up- 
on the world by young women pooling their life in- 
terests with drinking men for the sake of being mar- 
ried. Each one thinks for her sake the young propos- 
er will surely reform and stop drinking after the mar- 
riage day. 

Deluded creature, has she not observed scores of 
just such cases and noted their disastrous termina- 
tions ? She who marries a drinking man on his prom- 
ise of reformation without at least one or two years of 
practical demonstration of strict abstinence, does not 
stand one chance in a hundred of becoming an abs- 
tainer's wife, but from observation in hosts of just such 
cases it is safe to say that she. is more than likely to 
become the broken-hearted wife of a miserable drunk- 
ard, the pale-faced mistress of a comfortless hovel, 
probably the mother of little ones in danger of inheri- 
ting their father's drinking habits, pinched in their 
cold abode by the chil 1 blasts of winter, poorly nourish- 
ed and poorly clothed. 

What a picture, young lady, but how true. Ask 
such a wife if he did reform for her sake, and your 
heart will yearn for her in her self-made misery. 
Young lady, beware of the pit while you are in retreat- 
ing distance. 

Often some old fellow is quoted as having been ad- 
dicted to his cups fifty or sixty years and is hale and 
hearty to-day. That is considered a clinching argu- 
ment that cannot be gainsayed. "Where ignorance 
is bliss it's folly to be wise." 

Quite recently I read, I think, in the Quarterly 



HUMAN BODY. 151 

Journal of Inebriety, of a similar instance, that of a 
man over ninety years of age, an out-door worker, a 
farmer, who took life easy and drank whiskey most of 
his life, who was held up as a living example cf its 
harmlessness. It was claimed that he had been in the 
habit of drinking a pint of some kind of alcoholic 
spirits every day for sixty years, had never been ill 
and was still apparently hearty and well. 

The liquor journals flaunted his case before the 
public to prove moderate drinking a passport to old 
age. 

So much was said about it that a. physician institut- 
ed an examination into his history and that of his 
family. He reported that the man was below the aver- 
age in intelligence, with a large physical frame and 
was very methodical in his habits of living. Truly his 
general appearance did not indicate any great physical 
change consequent upon his drinking habits. But 
when the doctor came to investigate the history of his 
offspring the devil in disguise was prominentlv mani- 
fest. 

The man was living with his second wife. Of the 
first, three children were born, two of whom pined a- 
way and died in infancy and the third became an epi- 
leptic (which is a frequent result of drinking parent- 
age) and died at the age of fifteen. The second wife 
bore him four children, "one is a feeble-minded, the 
second is choreic, the third is dissolute and drinks, the 
fourth is erratic, passionate and a wanderer. All are 
decidedly inferior both physically and mentally. ' ' 

Truly the sins of the father are visited upon the 
children. 

What a history; and yet the old idiot doubtless 



152 ALCOHOL ON THE 

prides himself on having been able to withstand the 
sting of alcohol for sixty years, never realizing the 
misery he has entailed upon his family. 

I am confirmed in my opinion that inebriates and 
crimnals should be debarred by law from marryiug, 
and since drinking customs are so rapidly increasing 
among women I am more and more strengthened in 
my convictions along that line. 

No man or woman should be allowed to marry with- 
out passing a rigid medical examination by a govern- 
ment official and obtaining a certificate of a sound, 
physical and mental condition and free from the habit 
of liquor indulgences. If found to be afflicted with 
insanity, epilepsy, scrofula, pulmonary consumption, 
syphilis or a remaining blood taint from former af- 
fliction, inebriety or any infectious malady, no certifi- 
cate to be granted, and if marriage take place without 
such permit the parties to be punished for misdemean- 
or and the marriage contract be annulled. All con- 
victed criminals to come under the same restrictions. 

This ironclad requirement may at first thought 
seem a little arbitrary, but it is the only safety for 
future generation?, and would be a great incentive to 
those criminally inclined (as Sam Jones says) to quite 
their meanness. 

As it is a self-evident fact that all through nature, 
like begets like, it is a fearful thought that as sure as 
God is God, criminals beget ciiminals, scrofula begets 
scrofula, insanity begets insanity, idiocy begets idiocy, 
epilepsy begets epilepsy, syphilis begets syphilis, tub- 
erculosis begets tuberculosis and inebriety begets in- 
ebriety. 

Then in all candor is it right for any government to 



HUMAN BODY 153 

permit propagation of such curses and allow them to 
be handed down to coming generations to benumb the 
electric brain, paralyze the nerves, poison the blood 
and honeycomb the bones ? 

Through such ungoverned channels has come our 
dwarfed and depleted race, half barren, blood tainted, 
abnormal, stunted and short-lived. Hence the in- 
crease in our world of suffering. 

Horace Mann once said : "Individuals can debase 
individuals, but governments can brutalize a race." 
So it is as easily done by omission as by commission. 

It is an historical fact that the average stature of 
the French people was lessened two inches by the taller 
of the men being selected for Napoleon's army and 
killed in war. The enervated, languid races of Spain 
and Italy and the dwarfed hordes of Mexico and India 
are the outgrowth of ancestral vices. 



♦ > » < ♦ 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

ALCOHOL A POISON, NOT A FOOD. 

If alcohol be a food why is nature always striving 
so energetically, as physiologists find her to be, in 
trying to rid the system of it ? The juices of the body 
play their part in flowing freely in an effort to weaken 
or dilute it, to prevent its drying effect upon the mem- 
branes of the body along its pathway. The veins are 
after it in full force to hurry it along,* and out, the 
lungs, the kidneys, the pores of the skin, are all open 
and busy in trying to dislodge the intruder. 



154 ALCOHOIv ON THE 

Food is digested and warms and vitalizes the blood 
while alcohol does not digest but lowers the tempera- 
ture of the body. Food produces force in the body 
while alcohol is reactionary in its effects, and wastes 
force. 

In all spirituous liquors alcohol is the intoxicating 
principle they contain, and its effects upon the bodies, 
which are, as David told us ages ago, " fearfully and 
wonderfully made," are various and far-reaching. 

There are several varieties of alcohol produced from 
different substances, by distillation, but the common 
or ordinary alcohol of commerce, that which is obtain- 
ed from fermentation of fruits and grains, is the only 
one connected with the subject under consideration, 
so far as I shall discuss it. 

It hardly seems possible that a man of ordinary in- 
telligence and observation, could be found who would 
claim with any degree of earnestness, that alcohol is 
not a direct poison to the human system. 

Alcoholic poisoning has been under observation, not 
alone by scientists, but by the laity, for centuries past 
throughout all Christendom. 

Particularly in the last half century, since the in- 
vestigations of the learned chemist, Baron Leibig, has 
it attained the careful attention of the world-wide 
medical profession. 

How absurd the claim of Professor Atwater that it 
is an error to teach, without modification, that alcohol 
is a poison and not a food. Let us see a little whether 
or not this b,road-cast assertion is well founded. In 
the first place, what is the literal meeting of the little 
word poison. 

Webster gives its signification as "that which is 






HUMAN BODY 155 

noxious to life or health." In still more simple lan- 
guage it could be said, that which is harmful or de- 
structive. 

But the Standard Dictionary gives a still more lucid 
explanation, that it is "any substance that when tak-. 
en into the system acts in a noxious manner by means 
not chemical, tending to cause death or serious detri- 
ment to health. ' ' 

Scores of references could be given to the experi- 
ments and researches of eminent scientists who declare 
alcohol a poison, with their reasons for so classifying 
it, embodying in many instances their understanding 
of what constitutes a poison ; but in a short article like 
this, only here and there one can be quoted, as for in- 
stance, Dr. Fick of Germany, Professor of Physiology 
in the university of Wurtzburg, tells us that "from an 
exhaustive definition we shall have to class every sub- 
stance as a poison which on becoming mixed with the 
blood causes a disturbance in the function of any or- 
gan." That alcohol is such a substance he says, can 
not be doubted. 

Does not alcohol cause serious detriment to health 
and furnish daily instances of its specific action lead- 
ing to death ? Medical literature is teeming with hund- 
reds of pages of recorded instances of physical dam • 
age and premature deaths as the results of alcoholic 
potations, with uncontroverted proofs of its poisonous 
effects-. 

Professor Willard Parker said, "From no definition 
of a poison that can be found can alcohol be fairly shut 
out." 

Again is not the daily observation of every think- 
ing man, though he be not a descendant from Aescula- 



156 ALCOHOL ON THE 

pius, enough to satisfy his mind that man could not be 
so changed, unnerved, mentally unbalanced and phys- 
ically wrecked by alcoholic beverages if they possessed 
no poisonous qualities ? 

That medical investigators have, in their researches 
found alcohol to be a poison, we find in their writings 
many records of their conclusions in unmistakeable 
language, as for instance, in Potter's Materia Medico, 
the following expression, "the action of that narcotic 
poison, alcohol, on the human system &c." 

Dr. Alfred S. Taylor, lecturer on Medical Jurispru- 
dence in that celebrated institution, Guy's Hospital, 
London, says. "A poison is a substance which, when 
absorbed into the blood is capable of seriously affect- 
ing health or of destroying life. ' ' These definitions 
are generally accepted by the learned, and out of the 
medical profession. 

In Quains Medical Dictionary we read, "A poison 
may be defined as a substance having an inherent, de- 
leterious property which renders it capable of destroy- 
ing life by whatever avenue it is taken into the sys- 
tem," and it classifies alcohol among such poisons. 

These facts are fully established by the investiga- 
tions of hosts of scientists, medical and chemico phys- 
iological experts in this and other lands in }'ears of 
study and experimental investigations, who tell us 
most emphatically that alcohol is o poison and in no 
sense a food. 

Dr. August Forel, Professor in the University of 
Zurich, Switzerland, in which city I first met him, 
who is perhaps without a peer along these lines, de- 
clares that even in small doses, alcohol is poisonous in 
hs effects, and many others of great renown declare 



HUMAN BODY 157 

the same truth. For instance, Dr. Win. B. Carpenter, 
the celebrated author of the "Principles of Human 
Physiology," sa}-s, "No one who is familiar with the 
action of poisons upon the living animal body, and has 
made the nature of that action a special study, has the 
smallest hesitation in saying that alcohol is a poison." 

While admitting that it is in many cases slow in its 
action when taken in smalll quantities, it is neverthe- 
less a slow poison in the great majority of cases but 
that he does not regard it any the less sure because of 
its slowness. 

Poisons of course can be divided into at least three 
distinct classes, as irritants, neurotics or neurotico- 
narcotics and septics. In its varied poisonous effects, 
alcohol may be vei y properly classified under the head 
of irritants and neurotics. 

An irritant poison is one which produces irritation 
with more or less inflammatory effect upon or within 
the parts with which it comes in contact. 

A neurotic poison is one which manifests its damag- 
ing effects upon the brain and nervous system, which 
also embraces narcotics. 

As alcoholics so manifestly exhibit their injurious 
effects in the way of irritating most of the viscera of 
the body, directly or indirectly, paralyzing and derang- 
ing the functional offices of the brain and nervous sys- 
tem, we may treat it as a double poison. 

In all intoxicating drinks alcohol is the inebriating 
principle, and in autopsies the medical abserver has 
ocular demonstrations of Xhz. irritant poisoning effect 
upon the brain, stomach, liver, spleen, kidneys, heart, 
intestines, &c. 

The congested state of one or more of these organ? 



158 ALCOHOL ON THE 

in the body of a drinker is the common result of the 
poison imbibed. These organs are seldome found in a 
healthy condition in an habitual drinker, simply be- 
cause of the poisonous effect of the alcohol imbibed. 

In addition to the irritation imposed upon them, they 
often become hampered with an unhealthy fatty de- 
posit recognized under the cognomen, fatty degenera- 
tion, to which I have previously referred. 

That an ungovernable diseased appetite is cultivated 
for alcoholic stimulents by frequent quaffs at the cup 
is too well established to require the slightest comment, 
which fact is another added proof of the certainty of 
the poisonous nature of the drug. 

Dr. Be van Lewis, of England, classes alcohol second 
to no other poison in its character among the morbid 
affections and deteriorations of the bodily tissues, ex- 
cept that of syphilis. 

That alcohol is so often used in astonishing quanti- 
ties, for prolonged periods, and that men continue to 
live under the strain is no evidence that the effects are 
not poisonous, for like a thief in the night they often 
move slowly and unobserved in their dastardly mission, 
yet they are all the time playing their mischief like a 
hidden canker, gnawing at the vitals in their merciless 
attacks. 

Is it possible that even the casual observer, and 
much less medical men should require the aid of the 
chemist, the physiologist and the special scientist to 
convince them of the poisonous effects of alcohol upon 
the human system. 

The notable fact that Insurance Companies give 
great preference to total abstainers over even the oc- 
casional drinker is a patent proof that they have found 



HUMAN BODY. 159 

the former to be the longer lived, and those companies 
have investigated this subject most thoroughly.* 



♦ > »o 



CHAPTER XXV. 

WASTE AND REPAIR. 

Some one has said, "our body is a well-set clock, 
which keeps good time; but if it be too much, or indis- 
cretely tampered with, the alarm runs out before the 
hour. 

So it is if cared for as God intended it should be, 
and it will simply wear out with old age, but if it be 
indiscretely tampered with, as goading it on with al- 
coholics, it runs out before the hour. 

That alcohol in the system is utilized or transform- 
ed in any way' into food, force or caloric, is flatly con- 
tradicted and fully proven to be erroneous by the ex- 
periments of leading scientists all along down the de- 
cades for the last fifty years. 

No article which cannot be utilized as, or converted 
into force or tissue, thereby helping to repair the wear 
and tear of the body, and assisting in its normal func- 
tional duties, can be classed as food in any possible 
way. 

Our chemico-physiologists, with their eye of science, 
long since discovered that the human organism requires 
for its upbuilding and sustenance the following essen- 
tial aliments, viz. : Fatty matters, sugar, albuminoid 
substances and water, with various salts in solution, 
*See Chapter 31. 



160 ALCOHOL ON THE 

So we find the very first food provided by an all-wise 
Providence for the young infant, the mother's milk, 
composed of just these necessities, and not one drop 
of alcohol is there to be found in it, except when the 
stupid physician orders the mother, or she volunteers 
to take it into her stomach in some form, when it soon 
finds its way into her lacteal secretion, poisoning the 
young infant's pure little system, which not infre- 
quently creates a diseased appetite for the poison, and 
in after years ends in dissipation and drunkenness. 

The albumen so necessary to human existence is 
found in the casein of the milk which furnishes the 
required nitrogenous element of food. So, as we trace 
these products along down through all the great line 
of animal and vegetable aliments, we find that in them 
exists nitrogen. To produce, or build up tissue growths, 
nitrogen is one of the essential requisities, That re- 
quirement alone precludes any claim to the food pro- 
perties of alcohol, as no one will argue that it contains 
the slightest element of that ingredient. Yet we now 
and then hear of some one who has run off on a tan- 
gent with the delusion that alcohol is a food and a 
medicine. What a strange agency. Would any ad- 
vocate of that theory claim both those great offices 
for it at the same time, or that it would act as a food 
to day and as a medicine tomorrow ? 

Has nature provided a separating machine in our 
bodies to divide the pretended ingredients of alcohol 
so that when food is required it can be disconnected 
from the medicinal part, and vice versa f Preposte- 
rous ! Food indicates those nutriments that, when 
taken into the stomach, will nourish the body, sustain 
its force, repair its waste and generate heat for its 
existence. 



HUMAN BODY. 161 

Dr. Lees, who spent a lifetime in scientific investi- 
gations, says of alcohol: "It is foreign to the human 
body and its normal wants, one that never gives pow- 
er like food, nor aids circulation like water, nor pro- 
duces heat like oil, nor purifies like fresh air, nor 
helps elimination like exercise." 

It arouses or agitates the nervous system, partic- 
ularly those little fibers controlling the blood vessels 
by its power as a narcotic poison, also tends to the 
breaking down of the tissues and to general debility, 
while food products produce quite the opposite effects 
by nourishing, strengthening, building them up and 
repairing the loss or waste constantly taking place. 

The wasting tissues must be kept in repair, which 
can be done 011I5* by supplying the same elementary 
parts of the wasting organs or tissues themselves. 

As alcohol contains none of these elements it can- 
not in any possible manner be classed as a builder up 
or repairer in those every day changes, therefore it 
can in no way be counted in the lists of foods, but by 
its contra effects it again demonstrates itself a poison. 

It generates fat and sends it around the body in an 
unhealthful manner, but it never creates or strenth- 
ens muscular fiber, but does impart weakness to it. 
the contra effect from that of food This fact applies 
with equal force and adaptation to the nervous sys- 
tem which undergoes a like waste that must be suple- 
mented wilh food, while the goading on to over- work 
of the nervous system by the sting of alcohol, perhaps 
causes even greater waste proportionately than that 
from the muscular portion of the body. 

Again, when the blood becomes devitalized the tis- 
sues which are supported by it, always suffer. As ou r 



162 ALCOHOL ON THE 

bodies are constantly undergoing change of wear and 
repair, disease or bodily waste is inevitable if from any 
cause the material for supplying the waste is cut off. 

Among the most damaging results of the imbibation 
of alcoholics including the frequent destruction of life, 
are those so distinctly manifested under the neurotic 
division of the poison upon the nerves and brain, tres- 
passing upon the seat of intelligence and dwarfing 
manliness, dethroning reason, blunting sensibilities 
and faculties and unmaning manliness, often leading 
to paralysis, epilepsy, insanity and kindred maladies, 
not alone from their irritating, but from their neurotic 
effect upon the great nervous system. 

So science has opened the way to us, and its warn- 
ing voice admonishes us to "beware of strong drinks," 
the demon's poison. 

Among the leading poisons in common use in med- 
ical practice are alcohol, belladonna, opium and itsde- 
rivities, strychnia, chloral, conium, atropine, arsenic, 
digitalis, some of the virulent acids, etc., etc. 

Among them all alcohol is the most dangerous in its 
action, perhaps because it is the least feared and the 
most recklessly used, a flagrant fact however that fully 
demonstrates the scientists claim that it is a poison. 

The action of alcohol is in direct contrariety to the 
renewal of waste tissue because of its deteriorating in - 
fluence upon the blood, with its other damaging ef- 
fects, or in other words, of its poisonous influence up- 
on the vital fluid. 

Nutritive substances are dissolved when taken into 
the human labratory, by water preparatory to the 
yielding qualities^ which alcohol entirely fails to do, 
and being antagonistic to water, alw T ays absorbing it 



HUMAN BODY; 163 

when brought into juxtaposition with it, thus retard- 
ing the dissolving process of the water, and by such 
suspension interfering with the nutritive process by 
robbing the blood of its requisite supply of chyle, is 
another proof that it does not aid in repairing wasting 
tissues. 

No scientist has ever found in alcohol any flesh 
forming or reparative elements, such as glutenous, al- 
buminous or nitroginous properties so absolutely re- 
quired for bodily nutrition which are always present 
in proper food substances, and must be furnished to 
repair the waste going on in the brain, nerves, bone, 
cartilage, etc. 

In all my researches I have never found in any of 
the recorded observations or experiments of any his- 
tologist or analytical chemist, the claim chat tissue re- 
pair or nutrition can possibly be accomplished without 
the interposition of nitrogen, an element of which al- 
cohol is as devoid as a prize-fighter is of Christian 
piety. 

Can any reasonable man doubt that alcohol acts as a 
direct poison ? Will any sane man deny that the habi- 
tual use of even small quantities of alcohol produce in- 
jur}-, and that larger amounts are constantly causing 
the deaths of hundreds of thousands in this and other 
lands, and claim that its effects are beneficial ? 

Every physician has to battle against its ravages, 
and surgeons particularly have had their trials with it. 

Why does the physician in cases of yellow fever, 
small-pox, cholera, erysipelas, pneumonia and kindred 
diseases in the persons of alcoholic imbibers univers- 
ally declare an unfavorable prognosis and dread to 
touch them ? Simply because he knows of the poison- 



164 ALCOHOL ON THE 

ed condition of the blood and the vital organs of such 
afflicted ones and the positive knowledge of the doubt- 
ful recovery in all such cases. 

In cases of sever fractures with drinking patients 
why does the surgeon decline to apply the usual stay- 
ing and supporting dressings instead of packing the 
limb upon a cotton or down}^ pillow ? 

Simply because of the poisoned state of the blood and 
the like condition of the secretions of the body of his 
patient, rendering it hazerdous to apply any dressing 
at all tightly, in fear of unusual swelling, inflamma- 
tion, etc. which he would not ordinarily fear in the 
person of an abstainer. 

Why is it that he so often declines to perform a cap- 
itol operation upon a confirmed drinker that he ordin- 
arily performs with perfect safety upon abstainers ? 

Why is it that injuries of apparent trivial moment 
to the abstatiner so often end in inflammation, erysip- 
elas, gangrene, or septisemia with those who indulge 
in the use of alcoholic beverages ? 

The single answer to all these interrogatories is that 
the system under such circumstances is so poisoned 
that recovery is doubtful, and the prognosis generally 
unfavorable. 

Yet how often in cases of injury alcoholics are em- 
pyrically administered to stimulate and to buoy up the 
patient when he is already stimulated and poisoned to 
a dangerous degree. 

Why is it that young lads are so often stricken down 
and die after indulging in alcoholic draughts when 
they have not been accustomed to their use ? 

Because the drug has acted as an irritant poison, and 
they die as if asphyxiated with chlorform or poisoned 
with opium. 



HUMAN BODY 165 

Such cases are of frequent occurence. On October 
19th last (1901) in mid-ocean, a German mother and 
five children were on their way over to America to 
join the husband and father in Illinois. One of the 
party, a boy of ten years of age, in some way got hold 
of a flask of whiskey and took it to his mother's cabin 
and drank the contents. He soon become unconcious. 
Why ? Because of the narcotic influence of the liquor, 
and some hours later his mother found him dead from 
the influence of the narcotic poison.* 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

ALCOHOL A DEPRESSANT. 

Alcohol acts no part in the creation, growth, matu- 
rity or reparation of the human body, consequently its 
effects are contra to the principles of Jife, having noth- 
ing in common with it, except to poison, weaken or 
destroy it. It is itself the outcome of destruction and 
death of grains and fruits. 

There are no known facts to sustain the vague the- 
ory of some, that if any portion of alcohol taken into 
the stomach is retained for a time in the circulatory 
system that it imparts strength or vigor, but on the 
other hand it manifests its effects in the same way as 
do anasthetics, by relaxing muscular tonicity in pro- 
portion to the amount of the poison taken. 

Dr. J. J. Ridge who is high authority upon the sub- 
ject says, "In the case of alcohol we have a chemical 

*See Chapter 22, 



166 ALCOHOL ON THE 

poison which produces an inevitable effect in propor- 
tion to the amount imbibed." 

How frequently we see drinking men in a limp and 
intoxicated condition from this physiological change, 
the diminution of muscular power often accompanied 
with more or less loss of conciousness, sometimes to 
complete stupefaction, thus fully demonstrating alco- 
hol as a sedative poison. 

Again, Dr. N. S. Davis says, "Alcoholic drinks are 
poisonous in the same sense as are opium chlorform, 
etc., and should be sold only under the same laws as 
such poisons." 

One of Professor Atwater's conclusions is that alco- 
hol protects the body material from consumption just 
as effectively as corresponding amounts of sugar and 
starch." 

Strange theory to promulgate in the light of the 
science of to-day which teaches with unmistakeable 
proofs that all the organs of the body are damaged by it. 

That food is a builder up and supporter of bodily tis- 
sue, while alcohol is so positively a tearer down and 
damage to it, that nothing can be called a food unless 
it can enter into and assist in sustaining life, in which 
the leading scientists of the age in all lands are agreed, 
who declare to us that alcohol does not come under 
that class of agencies, seems sufficient proof alone to 
establish the fact that alcohol is not a food but is a 
poison. Examine any of the organs of the body of a 
confirmed drinker and we are confronted with the in- 
dellible proof of the ravges of alcohol.* 

Its effects upon the lung tissue, for instance and the 
nerves supplying the same, has led some writers very 

*See Chapters 13, 27, 32 and 39. 



HUMAN BODY 167 

appropriate 1 y, I think, to also denominate it a ' 'respi- 
ratory poison." 

Again, how often the medical practitioner meets with 
Toxic Amblyopia, or weakness of the eye-sight as one 
of the common results of the toxic poison of alcoholic 
beverages. And just here I am reminded of the same 
result often produced by the use of tobacco, so closely 
allied in its symptomatic appearance and effects that 
it is sometimes difficult to differentiate them. Indeed 
the two causes are often combined in their effects in 
the same individual. 

Dr. John Bell an eminent author, declares alcohol 
not a food, but a poison, and vhat every writer on tox- 
icology so regards it, and as such it is classed among 
the narcotic poisons. 

That alcohol, like chlorform, is an irritant narcotic, 
a depressor of muscular, or nervo-muscular power, that 
it is a general disturber of the functional arrangements 
of the various organs of the body, disorganizing and 
wasting their vital forces are well established physio- 
logical facts. 

To put the question in the mildest form, the testi- 
mony of hundreds of thousands of abstainers in differ- 
ent quarters of the globe, is that people are more able 
to endure the fatigues of life without than with the 
use of alcoholic drinks, conclusions actually arrived at 
by careful comparison of the two classes under like 
circumstances. 

Life Insurance statistics show that the health of to- 
tal abstainers is one half better than that of moderate 
and free drinkers, and that it is one third better even, 
than that of moderate drinkers. 

Sir Ramsden Slader, Physician General of Madras, 



168 ALCOHOL ON THE 

who had much experience in the tropics, said, "I have 
enjoyed an uncommon share of health : but I find lean 
go through bodily and mental exercise much better 
when I abstain altogether from alcoholic or fermented 
liquors." 

Baron Leibig says, "Beer, wine, spirits, etc., fur- 
nish no element capable of entering into the composi- 
tion of blood, muscular fibre, or any part which is the 
seat of the principle. ' ' 

Dr. F. R. Lees, F. S. A. says "The end of food is 
the generation of force, with which man performs the 
work of life, but the possible methods by which food 
can generate power are only three : ist, by the organ- 
ization of tissue, 2d, by the supply of chemical ingre- 
dients of the blood ; and 3d, by furnishing fuel for ox- 
ydation and the consequent production of heat. 

It is now seen that alcohol can do none of these 
things ; it cannot make tissue, nor supply salts and 
phosphates, nor feed the furnace,****. Alcohol, then 
contrasted in all its physiological properties with water, 
cannot rationally be regard as drink, any more than 
food, etc." He further says, "It has been shown, by 
a series of facts that health, strength, warmth, endu- 
rance and vital power are all best upheld by abstinence 
from alcoholics, and that moderate use of such liquors 
actually and sensibly increases the mortality. This 
proves by experience," he sa3^s, "that alcohol is not 
food, but a poison." 

Alcohol a poison ? Yes ! a teaspoonful of ardent 
spirits has often sacraficed the life of a child, and men 
unaccustomed to its use have been killed by it. Why, 
because it was a food ? Oh no ! but because through 
its narcotic poisonous action it produced death by ner- 
vous shock. 



HUMAN BODY 189 

As I have previously shown, alcohol readily finds 
its way into the blood, impovershing it, without itself 
undergoing any chemical change, and before it is eli- 
minated by the skin, kidneys, lungs, etc, setting free 
fatty and other matters, diverting the oxygen of the 
blood and causing the retention of waste matter, urea, 
etc. , which ought to be carried off from the bod}', at- 
tended with general depression of the nervous sys- 
tem, etc. 

The use of alcoholics with young infants for their 
narcotic effects, often produce hydrocephalus, or drop- 
sy of the brain. 

The laws of our being are not so complicated that 
the learned only can have a comprehensive idea of 
them but the every day observer must of necessity be- 
come, to no little extent, familiar with them. The}' are 
so simple and philosophic that even children can be 
taught to understand them. Thus the wisdom of teach- 
ing the laws of health and the pathology of intemper- 
ance in our public schools in the budding time of mental 
development, there being no more important period in 
our existence than that of chridhood and youth. 

That our lives are so blighted with disease, that we 
are afflicted with so many aches, cramps and pains, so 
many fevers, agues and dances, and such a long voca- 
bulary of maladies is proof positive that there is some- 
thing radically wrong in our habits and modes of liv- 
ing. What a contradiction to our boasted intelligence 
and refinement. 

How perfectly nonsensical it is for us to live such 
artificial lives as we are doing in this fast thoughtless 
age, that the practice is not simply inviting disease 
but is really offering a premium for it, and before re- 



170 ALCOHOL ON THE 

aching the meridian of life we are in the throes of old 
age. All because of the stupidity and ignorance in re- 
ference to the laws of right living, or if understood, 
because of our blind slowness of apprehension and in- 
difference in reference to our pl^sical care. 

Is it possible that man can be so stupid as to forget 
he has a body for thewell being of which he must care, 
according to the laws of nature as God has ordained ? 
Does he think it will run on automatical^ and need 
no care on his part ? 

If so he is blind indeed and will reap the bitter re- 
sults of his stupidity. For many years I have devoted 
much time to the stud} 7 of the effects of alcohol upon 
the human body and mind and have closely followed 
the recorded opinions of the leading learned and noted 
professional confreres. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

ALCOHOL OPPOSES FORCE AND ENERGY. 

In the days not long since passed, how almost uni- 
versal was the thought that man's physicial power for 
endurance was enhanced by the aid of alcoholic stimu- 
lants. And some are still so ignorant of the physical 
laws of nature as to cling to the same delusion. 

They do not stop to consider that the human body 
can no more undergo the prolonged strain of physical 
and mental labor without trespassing upon the vital 
energies than can an engine run indefinitely with no 
care for its wear and tear. 



HUMAN BODY. 171 

They give no thought that alcohol instead of build- 
ing up, repairing and strengthening the human ma- 
chine, is an intruder, a hinderer, an opposer to the 
natural laws that govern it, that the nerve power for 
inciting to action and muscular force to perform and 
endure must have reparative supplies for replenishing 
the loss of vital energy and building up the wasted tis- 
sue, and that alcohol in its effects is diametrically op- 
posed to such recuperative process. 

The incitement produced by alcohol is only tempo- 
rary and is mistaken for increased muscular power, 
when in fact it simply stimulates or goads on the mus- 
cules, through the nervous system to increased activ- 
ity but not to muscular tonicity, but actually dimin- 
ishes their power of endurance, thus the reason why 
laborers, athletes, arctic explorers, boat racers, soldiers 
in the army and many who use oatmeal and water, or 
indulge in the moderate use of tea or coffee can endure 
vastly more than those who resort to the use of alco- 
holic beverages. 

This is no dream of a fanatic, but a thoroughly au- 
thenticated fact arrived at by repeated practical tests 
and observations in different lands, attested by thou- 
sands of participants, especially in the British Army. 

Dr. Richardson says, "I would earnestly impress 
that the systematic administration of alcohol for the 
purpose of giving and sustaining strength is an entire 
delusion. That this spirit gives an increase of power 
by which men are enabled to perform more sustained 
work is a serious mistake.'' 

Sir Andrew Clark, M. D. has said, "For all purposes 
of sustained, enduring, fruitful work it is my experi- 
ence that alcohol does not help but hinders it. I am 



172 ALCOHOL ON THE 

bound to say that for all honest work alcohol never 
helps a human soul. Never ! Never !*" 

A few years since a very valuable book was publish- 
ed, entitled ' 'Stud}- and Stimulants, "in which was re 
corded the testimony of 132 men prominent in the lit- 
erary world, not one of whom resorted to alcohol to 
stimulate his brain nor to strengthen his thinking 
powers. The author said, "Not one resorts to alco- 
hol for inspiration." 

The "C3^clist's Route Book" says, "Alcoholic drinks 
should be avoided; they prevent good work being done 1 ' 
The claim that alcohol furnishes nourishment is a 
fallacious idea, as it has no power except to lessen the 
feeling of hunger in its action as a neurotic or narcotic 
poison. So it becomes self evident that it neither im- 
parts nourishment, strength nor warmth. 

Dr. N. S. Davis says, alcohol is neither a food nor a 
generator of force in the human body. He also says, 
"No form of alcoholic drinks is capable of either warm- 
ing, strengthening, nourishing or sustaining the life 
of any human being." 

Dr. R. Green tells us that alcohol is neither food 
nor medicine, nor does it supply force, but lessens it. 

Dr. Richardson says, "The idea of alcohol giving 
force and activity to the muscles is entirely false." 
Again he says, that "those who abstain from alcoholic 
drinks are stronger and warmer than those who indulge 
in their use." 

Why does a tired man think he feels refreshed after 
a drink of liquor ? Simply because his nerves of sen- 
sation are partially paralyzed for the time being and 
he is deceived thereby and his body pays the penalty 
See Chapters 19, 27, 29 and 30. 



HUMAN BODY. 173 

by keeping him longer in recuperating from his fatigue. 

Not because the tired feeling is removed, but for 
the reason that the sensation is temporarily impaired 
or cut off. Just so it is with hunger which seems to 
be appeased, but the same cause governs that sensa- 
tion also. This too is another evidence of the poison- 
ous effect of alcohol. 

In Dr. Richardson's writings we read of some very 
interesting experiments he instituted in his scientific 
investigations along these lines, among them his test 
for weakening power of alcohol, demonstrated upon 
the leg of a frog. 

To the hind leg of a frog he suspended a weight 
carefully adjusted, then applied electricty over the 
muscles until he obtained the fullest possible contrac- 
tion of them, thus demonstrating just how much these 
muscles are capable of raising. Then he adminstered 
alcohol and applied electricity as previously noted and 
and he found the responsive contractions became less 
strong and more and more feeble as the narcotico- 
poison took effect, until less than half the weight 
could be raised that was previously lifted before the 
alcohol had been adminstered. 

It is a well settled fact that even the moderate use 
of alcohol lessens the total physical energies of the 
human body. If alcoholics are taken into the stomach 
at all they should be adminstered by the specific direc- 
tion of an intelligent physician. They should be pre- 
scribed and adminstered scientifically as any other poi- 
son would be used as a remedy, in specified doses of 
uniform strength. 

The medical man in prescribing any of the branches 
of the alcohol family, as rum, brand}', gin, whiske3*, 



1~4 ALCOHOL ON THE 

wine, porter, stout, etc., without specifying the parti- 
cular brand desired, has no knowledge of what his 
patient will get, for all sorts of slops and compounds 
are palmed off upon the public under those heads as 
pure liquors. 

As much care should be exercised is prescribing al- 
cohol as in case of any poison, when a specific brand 
or chemist's name is attached to the prescription. This 
may seem to be an unusual precaution ; and so it is 
and I wish it were not necessary, but to me it is a 
very important one. 

The tonicity of the heart like that of the blood ves- 
sels is governed by nerve regulators, s so when that 
control is impaired by the neurotic poisoning effect of 
the alcohol through its paralyzing power, the heart 
runs roit, beats more rapidly and the arterial force 
being lessened, the blood is unduly rushed through 
the body, imperfectly re oxygenated, and much of the 
eifete matter along the way is not taken up and car- 
ried to the bodily scavengers as nature designs. 

This fact is also the key note to the explanation of 
supposed increased bodily heat that drinkers claim to 
xeperience. But the physiological rationale of the 
change is, that bodily heat is sustained by food, which 
in the animal economy is the generator of caloric, 
while alcohol acts in a way to counteract that process 
to quite a degree. 

For instance, the effect of alcohol in the circulatory 
system is to partially paralize the nerves of the blood 
vessels, thus diminishing their contractile power, dilat- 
ing and weakening them, which result allows a great- 
er and abnormal flow of blood which contains heat, 
to the surface of the body through the weakened ves- 



HUMAN BODY. 175 

sels for a brief period, while at the same time it inter- 
feres with and lessens the natural chemical changes 
within, changes necessary for the generation of heat, 
causing the internal temperature of the body to be 
more correspondingly lowered- 

To generate the required heat and energy for the 
promulgation of life, foods that will readily oxydise, 
such as butter, cheese, oil, fat, starch, sugar, etc., as 
stated in a previous article, must be supplied, and the 
process is greatly retarded by the use of alcoholics, and 
often the tissues ar so broken down by the poison that 
the damage is irreparable. 

Man is not born in strength but he is the emblem of 
weakness, yet if he lives and moves in harmony with 
the physical universe around him, God will bless 
him and prosper his good works. But woe be to him 
who sets himself against the invisible chemistry of 
nature's laws, for it is fired and unchangeable. 

Man given over to appetites and passions is the 
most degraded being that beastializes the earth, his 
concupiscence and present sensations are his only 
heaven or his only hell, 

The moral and religious universe seems of little ac- 
count to him in whom temperance and licentiousness 
runs riot. I have no desire to go into a rehearsal of 
the Dead /Seas of those physical abominations. 



♦ >*< ♦ 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

BEER- DRINKING. 

The earl}' advocates of total abstinence, with no eye 
to science, arrived at the conclusion that the only pan- 



176 ALCOHOL ON THE 

acea for drunkenness and prevention of the danger of 
falling into drinking customs, was total abstinence 
from all intoxicating beverages. How fully time and 
science have verified these wise conclusions. 

But from time to time some wiseacre or would-be 
philanthropist, and indeed an occasional oracle of some 
repute starts up with a flourish of trumpets to persuade 
the world that the long line of noted scientists who 
have contributed so much for the amelioration of the 
rum slaves are all off in their deductions. 

But the arguments and experiments of these new 
luminaries have failed to convince the thinking in- 
quirers of. the avowed correctness of their theories. 
The moderate drinker of to-day consoles himself that 
the wise thing to do is to largely shun the stronger al- 
coholics and confine his potations to that harmless 
beverage, beer, on the oft-lauded theory that it is 
nourishing and healthful. 

What are some of its healthful blessings manifested 
upon the human system ? One of the first is to incr- 
ease the size of his stomach to a capacity for a goodly 
round of drinks all day. Of course it is correspond- 
ingly weakened for its ordinary functional duties, but 
no matter for that if its reservoir capacity is sufficient 
for the daily storage, so we find every habitual beer- 
drinker's stomach abnormally enlarged, as any one can 
well judge from the amount of slops often quaffed. 

A witness in a case of violation of the excise law for 
selling larger beer without license, was asked if he were 
an habitual beer-drinker, and he answered affirmative- 
ly. He was then asked how many glasses per day 
anyone could drink without feeling any intoxicating 
effects "Well," said he, "I cannot tell that for I 



HUMAN BODY ITT 

never drank over fifty or sixty glasses in a day, but I 
suppose if a man went on and made a hog of himself he 
might get too much." The next damaging effects are 
upon the kidneys and liver, so often followed by 
Bright's disease, or enlargement and softening of the 
kidneys, or an equally alarming change in the liver, 
by enlargement, fatty deposit, or dotted with little 
hardened points like nail-heaps, which is called the 
hob-nailed or drunkard's liver, and in addition to 
these, a long line of other diseased viscera are de- 
veloped from beer drinking. 

Physicians and surgeons all agree that a beer-drink- 
er is a hard subject for a favorable prognsois under 
medical or surgical treatment for any injur}- or malady. 
Tell any physician that his patient is an habitual beer- 
drinker and he will shrug his shoulders and draw a 
deep sigh, wishing the patient had not fallen into his 
hands for treatment. 

It is difficult to find any vital organ in a beer-drink- 
er doing its work as nature designed it should. That 
is the reason beer-drinkers are so often snapped off 
suddenly. 

It is not to be supposed that there are no damaging 
results because we cannot always trace them. One 
writer says : ' 'The idea that because 3^011 stop before 
you stagger, the system takes no note of the damaging 
material you put into it, is a ruinous delusion." 

One thing is physiologically certain, that a healthy 
person does not need artificial assistance to sustain him, 
even if he could find sustenance in beer. Beer or any 
other form of alcohol contains little or no sustaining 
element, but on the other hand it is a depressent, 
lowering the condition of the system below the stand- 



178 ALCOHOL ON THE 

ard of health just in proportion as it primarily stimu- 
lates or excites above that point. 

Such abnormai changes cannot long be endured by 
the human system but damaging results are to follow, 
such as impaired nutrition, weakening of the nervous 
system, debility of the vascular organism deranging 
the heart's action and the circulation of the vital 
fluid, etc.. etc. 

Thus the beer-drinker does not stand an equal chance 
with his abstemious neighbor for recovery from any 
disease or injury,* 

For more than a quarter of a century beer has been 
coming to the front (abdominal appearances verifying 
the statement) , as a partial substitute at least for strong- 
er alcoholics. It is argued by some that it is a healthful 
substitute and an aid to nutrition. Let us stop a mom- 
ent and analize that theory. 

There is less than an ounce of swilled extract of 
barley in a gallon of best beer. Why ? Because fer- 
mentation is the result of the death of the grain, and 
fermentation must take place to produce swill beer, 
and to bring about that result, almost the entire nutr- 
ment has been driven out by the sprouting, rotting 
and malting of the barley from which the beer is ob- 
tained. 

The nutriment is so nearly all destroyed or driven 
out by that change that a man would starve to death 
drinking beer in the hope of nourishing himself. 

Deluded drinkers force themselves into the belief 
that as beer fattens it must nourish. Fat in supera- 
bundance is not health, but disease. It means un- 
healthy biood, unhealthy juices, unhealthy muscles and 
unhealthy organs generally. 

*See Chapters n and 13. 



HUMAN BODY, 179 

Alcohol always renders the blood more or less im- 
pure and diminishes its capability of eliminating the 
general impurities of the system. When the blood is 
in any way interfered with and changed into an abnor- 
mal condition it becomes incompetent for performing 
its eliminating functions, and the waste matters accu- 
mulating have to be disposed of in some way, thus then 
deposit upon the different organs of the body, in and 
around the muscles in the form of fat, and if increased 
to any considerable extent it is an indication of disease. 

One of the leading exciting causes of this derange- 
ment, known as fatty degeneration is the action of al- 
cohol upon the blood exhibiting its results upon the 
various organs of the body in the deposits iust indicat- 
ed, which are always debilitating. 

Beer, producing fattv degeneration is a disease pro- 
ducer. So the bloated, blinded beer-drinker is a travel- 
ing monument of distorted, diseased and deluded hum- 
anity. The whole system becomes degenerated and 
brought into a proper condition for an attack of dis- 
ease of any nature. That is not all ; the intellectual 
and moral faculties are also impaired, and the beer 
guzzler is in great danger of becoming anamalized, 
sensualized, and some times brutalized. 

He is every day lessening his capability of resisting 
disease, and indeed his beer is the enemy that invites 
and encourages diseases and shortens life. A corpu- 
lent beer-drinker has a very feeble hold on life when 
attacked with almost any disease. 

Among the visitations incited by beer to the systems 
of .such drinkers, are Bright' s disease of the kidneys, 
diabetes, fatty degeneration of the kidneys, liver, sple- 
en, heart, blood vessels, the tissues in and around the 
muscles, and the brain, if he have an3 r . 



180 ALCOHOL ON THE 

Many more deaths are reported every year in these 
times from heart and kidney diseases than were known 
before the use of beer became so prevalent, and the 
great majority are among beer-drinkers. Beer is one 
of the greatest inciting causes of these diseases. It is 
indeed more certain in its ultimate results than any of 
the other alcoholic drinks of the times. 

Beer-drinkers are the play grounds for diseases. 
A man may be a picture of health in the e3>-es of the 
unsophisticated to day, and yet be so diseased that he 
dies to-morrow of beer poisoning. 

When the fingers of bartenders become so diseased 
by their contact with beer as to cause their severance 
from the hand, as frequent reports are showing us, 
what must be the condition of the internal organs of 
stupid idiots who loaf around the saloon, saturating 
themselves day by day with the vile compound ? 

A year or more since the "International Magazine" 
published a statement credited to the "New York 
Mail and Express" setting forth the foilowing state- 
ments upon this very point. In my own language I 
reproduce them here. 

The attention of hospital surgeons was called to the 
fact that bartenders had lost several fingers of both 
hands within the past few years. The first case men- 
tioned was that of an employee of a Bowery concert 
hall. Three fingers of the right hand and two of the 
left were rotted and sloughed off, when the sufferer 
called at Belle vue asking the reason for his affiction. 
He explained that his duty was that of drawing beer 
for the great crowds who visited the garden nightly. 

With the exception of this malady he seemed to be 
in good health. The diagnosis was, that the beer he 



HUMAN BODY. 181 

had handled had "rotted off" the fingers. Many 
other cases of like character have been discovered since. 
There is little doubt, judging from what I have seen 
published of such instances that there are hosts of just 
such cases in the primary and more advanced stages of 
that malady. The resin and the acid are said to con- 
stitute the cause of the ailment. 

The article referred to also states, "The head bar- 
tender of a well-known down -town saloon says he knows 
a number of cases where bar-tenders have, in addition 
to losing several fingers of both hands, lost the use of 
both members." Beer, he said would rot leather, and 
that it was "impossible to keep a good pair of shoes be- 
hind the bar. ' ' What a record. 

Is it any wonder that men's stomachs will fail and 
lose their functional powers, when their fingers and 
old shoes cannot stand the contact of the vile compound? 

The majority of excessive beer-drinkers become cor- 
pulent, loaded down with fat, a pretty certain pass- 
port to untimely graves. 

Again, beer drinking mothers clasp their nurslings 
to their breasts unmindful of the danger to which they 
are subjecting their little ones. The curse of curses 
of to-day is the use of beer at the family table. In 
many circles, little children are forced to drink the 
bitter draught, quite to their disgust, but they soon 
learn to like it. 

Is there any thing more devilish than for parents to 
compel their children, or even allow them (as is often 
the case) to drink from the beer pail in the home circle ? 
In our cities this is a common occurence, and the little 
ones are forced to sip at the family beverage, at first 
repulsive, but finalty the appetite becomes diseased, 



182 ALCOHOL ON THE 

and thus the early cup often leads to inebriety, and too 
often to premature death. 

Compared with inebriates who use different kinds of 
alcoholic drinks, the beer-drinker is more generally 
diseased and nearer a state of incurabilit}^. The daily 
use of beer gives the system no chance for recuperation 
and steadily lowers the vital forces. 

Let beer drinking continue for another quarter of a 
century and make it obligatory that the cause of death 
shall be inscribed on every tombstone of the dead drink- 
ers, and we should see staring us in the face at every 
turn in every cemetery, inflammation of the liver, in- 
flammation of the kidneys, inflammation and softening 
of the stomach, softening of the brain, paralysis, 
Bright's disease, diabetes, fatty degeneration, apoplexy 
and a host of kindred diseases. 

What a commentary that would be, that beer drink- 
ing had transformed our cemetaries into the great 
medical lexicons ! The moral, young man, the moral. 



♦ >»< ♦ 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

BKER FATTENING. 
It is surprising how many there are who not only 
think the indulgence in beer drinking is not harmful 
but is of t-t 1 'mes highly beneficial, recuperative and heal- 
thful, when the truth is, it is harmful and poisonous 
in that its exciting principle is alcohol, and to the ex- 
tent of that drug contained in the beer, to the same 
extent it is poisonous just in proportion as it is the poi- 



HUMAN BODY 183 

sonous ingredient in other liquors, like rum, brandy, 
whiskey, gin, wine or cider, and like those beverages 
it is not a food, as it contains none of the elements for 
creating or repairing bodily tissue. "But, "you ask" 
is it not made from giain which is highly nutrative?" 
O Yes. but the nutritive element in the grain is destroy- 
ed in its convertion into beer so that it is completely 
robbed of its food properties thus leaving the beer 
simply water and alcohol. 

"But, do not people, as we say of horses, thrive and 
get fat on it?" No, they do not thrive on its use 
though they do accumulate fat. Did you consider the 
quality of that fat ? It is not muscle nor healthy adi- 
pose matter, but simply fat, in the broadest sense of the 
term, not a healthy deposit, but disease. 

That is so from the fact that the alcohol it contains 
interferes with the circulation as explained in other 
chapters, so that the elimination of waste matter is not 
perfected, but it accumulates in all the by-ways or in- 
terstices of the body in form of fat, made up from the 
accumulations of effete matters, and in that way poison- 
ing the system. 

How often we see on our streets, bloated, puffed up, 
walking human beer tubs who feel a boastful pride 
over their corpulence, imagining it to be an emblem of 
health, but when attacked with any acute disease they 
soon shuffle off their mortal coil. 

I have a vivid recollection of a young man, pros- 
perous in business, weighing probably 165 pounds in 
health, who took to drinking, and finally confined his 
potations mostly to beer. His face soon threw out the 
red flag of danger, he began to accumlate fat until it 
became laborious for him to walk. 



184 ALCOHOL ON THE 

He lived a half mile from the cluster of grog shops 
in his town, and the distance was finally too great for 
him to walk, so every morning after breakfast his ser- 
vant drove him to the drinking places in a carriage 
and returned for him at dinner time and again in the 
afternoon took him to one of his drinking lairs and 
called for him at night. 

His fat increased enormously, so much so that it be- 
came difficult for him to enter or alight from his car- 
riage. 

He was a bloated sight to behold. I watched him 
from day to day, simply as an observer, and finally the 
news came that he was ill, and just as I expected, the 
next message informed us that he had succumbled and 
bade farewell to earth and all its charms. 

I have another just such case under observation at 
the present time, a bright young man with every op- 
portunity for a useful and prosperous life, but alas he 
too is going down. 

Widespread is the belief that alcohol is really streng- 
thening and health producing because men so easily 
fatten upon it. Stupid indeed is that reasoning, as 
that is really one of the most confirmed arguments that 
its effects are damaging and poisonous to the human 
economy. There is nothing that so decidedly lowers 
man's vitality and weakens his power of resistance as 
as alcohol. 

When we iterate the truth that alcohol is more or 
less a damage when received into the system we do not 
restrict it to any particular form of intoxicating bever- 
ages but find it just as damaging, proportionately when 
taken in beer, wine or cider. 

In beer an additional injury is inflicted b} r the en- 



HUMAN BODY 185 

ormous quantity so often taken, creating a permanent 
over distention and weakening of the stomach, as 
formerly noted. 

But there is still another important fact almost uni- 
versally overlooked, which is, that beer-drinkers 
though not so often intoxicated, actually consume more 
alcohol than do those who use stronger drinks, because 
of the great amount of beer consumed and the more 
continuous imibation of it, keeping up a constant sup- 
ply of alcohol in the blood, giving nature very little 
time for recuperation, consquently the tissues yield 
and diseases supervene. 

No matter in what form or in what receptive vehi- 
cle alcohol is introduced into the stomach, it is the ac- 
tive intoxicating principle which in ale and porter there 
is from six to eight per cent, in wine from seven to 
eighteen per cent, and in brandy and whiskey from 
thirty to. forty per cent. 

Those who abstain from these drinks live longer, 
enjoy life better, can stand more fatigue, endure 
greater hardships, resist a higher degree of heat, and 
a lower degree of cold than those who resort to their 
use. 

They have better balanced minds, a greater degree 
of mental acuteuess, keener perceptive faculties and 
more delicate sense. 

God made man with so great a degree of physical 
perfection that he has many marked points of beauti- 
ful development, all of which suffer and fade under the 
ravages of the intruder, alcohol. 

To retain his pristine elegance, man must necessari- 
ly obey the laws of nature. Emerson says, ' * The 
beautiful rests on the foundations of the necessary." 



186 ALCOHOL ON THE 

George McDonald has said, "I want to keep you as 
beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of 
you first. ' ' How can he expect to retain it under the 
use of intoxicating beverages, when it is so clearly 
proven that alcohol lessens muscular toncity and ner- 
vous power, and in extreme cases under its poisoning 
influence completely extinguishing them. 

Baron Leibig says, "Beer, wine, spirits, etc, furnish 
no element capable of entering into the composition of 
blood, muscular fibre, or any part which is the seat of 
vital principle." 

Does alcohol contain any solid matter requisite for 
food ? Does it furnish any salts or iron for the blood ? 
Has it any constituent which is a tissue restorative ? 
Science answers, it has none of these elements in any 
form. Alcohol does not supply any of these import - 
and necessary elements of life. 

In the early days of the reform movement, from a 
medical standpoint, Dr. Benjamin Rush gave it a great 
impetus with his scientific researches, and published 
to the world the results of his investigations on the 
effects of ardent spirits, in which he said, "It would 
take a volume to discribe how much other disorders, 
natural to the human body, are increased and compli- 
cated by them. Every species of inflamatory and put- 
rid fever is rendered more frequent and 'm* >re dangerous 
by the use of spirituous liquors." 

His arguments, founded upon physiological investi- 
gations, were sledge-hammer blows against the theory 
of the dietetic properties of alcohol. 

This opened the way to the thorough study and ex- 
perimental explorations which have since followed, 
and through which the world is becoming enlightened 



HUMAN BODY 187 

along these lines, so that the thinking ones of the 
times are discarding the use of intoxicants, thereby 
beginning to lengthen the duration of their stay upon 
this mundane sphere. 

It is a well authenticated fact that the use of any 
poison for a time, calls for an increased quantity to 
produce the longed-for effect, and all the narcotic poi- 
sons, including alcohol, by their debilitating and ex- 
hausting power upon the nervo-muscular system con- 
duce to excite the craving, and so frequently the un- 
controlable appetite, especially for alcoholics, amount- 
ing ofttimes to absoltue frenzy for their stimu^ting, 
exhilerating, or narcotic effects. Under their use the 
will is weakened and made subservient to the diseased 
appetite until some are quieted, while others are trans- 
formed into excited, brutish ruffians with reason de- 
throned under the charms of the insidious deceiver. 
So science lifts its warning voice against the use of 
alcoholics under the delusion that the}' are foods, and 
demonstrates that they are poisonous in their effects 
upon the human organism. "Beware af strong drink. ' ' 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

FIBRIN IN THE BLOOD. 

Man is a noble being, and God so created him, and 
for his enjoyment and benefit God made the world with 
its magnifiicence and beauty, and breathed His own 
*See Chapter 30, 



188 ALCOHOL ON THE 

breath of life into his nostrils, and the morning stars 
sang together for joy. Yet how man has beastalized 
himself for the gratification of appetite and passions. 

One important physiological fact not previously 
dwelt upon in this series ought not to be passed by 
without further comment; that as old age approaches, 
vitality becomes more or less enfeebled by a natural 
diminution of ox} T gen in the blood coipustles, conse- 
quently less carbon is thorvvn out by expiration. 

In like manner alcohol acts upon the human econ- 
omy by inducing drowsiness, lethargy, a sort of lacka- 
daisical feeling, thus, for the time being converting 
youth or young manhood into old age. 

Still another among the many physiological truths 
not having been sufficiently considered, I beg to note 
here. In fact a number of changes which the blood 
undergoes in those who drink alcoholics have not, be- 
cause of the brevity of these papers, been sufficiently 
enlarged upon, notably the one in mind, a very potent 
one, the diminished power of coagulation. 

One of the important components of the blood, is 
"fibrin-." which, when brought in contact with the air 
forms a coaglum or clot of a flesh-like appearance. 

When blood is drawn and exposed to atmospheric 
influence the fibrin seperates from the watery portion 
or serum into this coagulated mass. 

From this semi-solidifying of the fibrin when thus 
exposed the blood has been denominated by some as 
"liquid flesh." 

In slight wounds nature arrests the hemorrhage by 
solidifying or coagulating the fibrin of the escaping 
blood, which seals the wound over, acting as nature's 
safety compress. 



HUMAN BODY. 189 

In the lower animals coagulation takes place much 
more rapidly than in man ; and in some species of birds 
the change is almost instantaneous. God has provid- 
ed that safeguard for them instead of surgeons. 

It has long been a noticeable fact that in savage 
tribes this coagulation takes place so rapidly that 
wounds recover with remarkable quickness. 

There is a very interesting and important physi- 
ological fact in connection with this difference between 
the blood of a drinker and that of an abstainer. 

The fibrin in the blood of a drinker is diminished 
and the water is increased, thus greatly lessening the 
power of coagulation. So when savages have been 
brought under the influence of alcoholic drinks their 
wounds heal no more readily than those of our own 
kin who are drinkers. 

So far as we know this is the main function of fibrin 
in the blood, it not being essential to the vivifying 
process. How important that it should not be deplet- 
ed by the trespass of alcohol. 

Looking at it in a commercial way there is quite a 
trading or interchange of materials going on in our 
bodies, inthe throwing out of old matter and taking in 
new, which is notably marked in the changes be- 
tween the blood and the tissues. The tissues receive 
their reparative supplies, their food and oxygen, and 
give off in return the waste or worn out matter. 

Water plays a very important part in the great 
functional change, as all nutriment passing into the 
circulation is in a state of solution, and water is the 
solvent medium. 

Alcohol introduced into the system retards the har- 
monious action by its attack upon the albumen of the 



190 ALCOHOL ON THE 

blood through its power to absord the water, or by its 
coagulating power. The blood being thus poisoned 
(as we are warranted in terming it) is impeded in its 
distribution of reparative material, thus our energy, 
vigor and elasticity are weakened, to say the least. 

In childhood particularly, are these results very 
prominent, in that the growth and development of the 
innumerable little cells of the body are impaired and 
the full physical perfection is often cut short in child- 
ren who are allowed to indulge in beer, or any of the 
alcoholic beverages. 

The knowledge of this fact has led dog dealers to 
the practice of administering daily potations of gin to 
young puppies to meet the demands of fanciers of 
small dogs, so when these little canines reach the ma- 
ture age of dogdum, they present the stature of 
dwarfed puppy dom onlv , by its depriving the corpus- 
cles of a portion of their water, shrinking them in size 
and lessening their power for absorbing oxygen. 

This has been fully demonstrated by experiments 
upon animals. Under such circumstances the tissues 
are subjected to oxygen starvation, by which, together 
with the narcotic poisoning effect of the alcohol, less 
heat is generated and the bodily powers of endurance 
are vastly lessened. 

The organs of the body are made up of tissues, and 
each tissue is composed of innumerable little cells, too 
minute to be seen with the naked eye, but the micro- 
scope reveals their existence, each one has a little 
functional duty of its own, in absorbing from the blood 
just such nutriment as the organ to which it belongs 
requires. As the different parts increase in size the 
cells of the tissues enlarge proportionately, unless 
they be interrupted, as by the touch of alcohol. 



HUMAN BODY 191 

A current of oxygen is being constantly carried 
from the air we breathe, by the blood, to all the tis- 
sues of the body, but particularly to the muscles, by 
the arteries, and at the same time the venous system 
of blood vessels carries off a current of carbonic acid 
and water, as previously noted. 

Just how this physiological or chemical change takes 
place we do not know. We do know the fact of the 
change, but we have not yet satisfactorily fathomed 
its true modus operandi. 

There are several hypotheses declared however, 
some of which seem quite reasonably founded. For 
instance, some physiologists aver that the muscle has 
the power of absorbing or taking up the oxygen from 
the haemaglobin of the blood and in some way uteli- 
zing it as contractile producing material. That the- 
ory seems to be reasonably well founded. 

Others speculate on the theory that the chemical 
change in the muscle partakes of a fermentive nature, 
creating or setting free, heat and force by a sort of 
subordinate oxydation in the arterial blood, by the 
particles breaking up and forming simpler products. 
Then others and quite as vague theories are advanced 
which are too hypothetical for consideration. 

Suffice it to say, that the haemaglobin comprises 
about ninety per cent, of the red corpuscles of the 
blood when dried, and is the transporter of the oxygen 
in that vital fluid; and that when alcohol is taken into 
the system it poisons those little blood molecules and 
deranges the whole process of oxygenation, and the 
entire system is thrown into discord by it. 

That the blood is the vital fluid of life there is no 
dispute. To-day transfusion of the blood of an animal 



192 ALCOHOL ON THE 

into the circulatory system of man is sometimes prac- 
ticed and a valuable life snatched almost from the 
grave and saved by it. How important it is then, that 
it should be kept free from the contaminating influ- 
ence of such an intruder as alcohol. 

Transfusion of this life giving fluid is no new opera- 
tion. It was a subject of much interest in the 17th 
century. The blood of a calf was once transmitted to 
a maniac which restored his reason. 

The vitality of animals has been restored by this 
process of transfusion after all signs of respiration 
had ceased. 

Is it a physiological fact that our business men re- 
quire alcohol to aid them in their mental strain to 
which they are subjected, to keep their brains well 
balanced, their minds clear and their business faculties 
tuned up to a high pitch of perfection ? 

Our study of the stupefying and poisonous effects 
of those beverages teach us most unmistakably in the 
negative. 

Do business firms look for young men who are ad- 
dicted to their cups, for salesmen and book keepers ? 
Do railway corporations require their train dispatchers' 
conductors, engineers, switchmen and other employees 
to use alcoholic drinks to insure careful and safe man- 
agement of their responsible business, and as a guaran- 
tee to the safe transportation of their thousands of 
human freight entrusted to their care ? 

No, indeed, but quite the reverse. Many of our 
railway corporations are so well versed in the danger- 
ous results of those beverages, and the frequent dis- 
asters consequent upon their use that they would at 
once, witnout ceremony, discharge even the most 



HUMAN BODY 193 

trusty of their employees if seen to be entering a 
drinking saloon. 



♦ >?<■> 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

SUMMARY. 

Iii the perusal of this course we have noticed facts 
which are beyond successful contradiction, facts that 
have been substanciated over and over again by obser- 
vation and experimental investigations by hosts and 
hosts of the most learned scientists on both sides the 
sea which now stand as recorded scientfic truths the 
world over. 

Some of the axioms are so important they should be 
grouped together in a sort of compendium for the gen- 
eral reader, thus my excuse for recapitulation in this 
the closing article of the series. 

We have seen that alcohol never digests food, nor 
does it even assist in the process, but actually impedes 
it ; it creates no power nor strength, but does impart 
weakness. 

That it does not create heat as some suppose, but 
deceives the untaught by diminishing his conciousness 
of the effects or changes which are wrought within him. 

That it weakens the heart's action and even ih mode- 
rate drinkers increases its rapidity by the paralyzing 
effect upon the little cardiac or heart vessels, thus 
lessening the propelling power of the muscle instead of 
augmenting it, permitting an undue amount of blood 
to flow through it while it poisons and deteriorates the 



194 ALCOHOL ON THE 

blood globules, lessens its oxygenation and decarbon- 
ization, two of the most important necessities in the 
living economy. 

That it decreases the process of nutrition, secretion, 
elimination, effeminates the muscles, never acts as food 
by repairing or building up waste tissue, but is a gen- 
eral poison in health and sickness. 

That it hardens the brain, changes the structure of 
the nerve fibre and lessens the vaso motor nerve power 
and influence, distorts and weakens the blood globules 
and deranges their functional offices. 

That it inflames, congests and ulcerates the stomach 
and the whole of the alimentary canal, impairs the ap- 
petite, induces thirst and enervates the whole nervo- 
muscular system. 

That the long continuance of alcohol even in limit- 
ed quantities permanently changes the general struct- 
ural portions of the body, particularly of the stomach, 
liver, kidneys, heart, blood vessels and nerves. 

That these distortions or changes are more common 
in daily habitual drinkers than in the periodical drink- 
er who has lucid intervals, as it were, when he drops 
off the practice for a time giving nature a chance to re- 
cuperate. 

That the more steadily the drinker keeps his blood 
charged with alcohol, even in moderate quantities, the 
greater is the danger to dropsies of the liver and kid- 
neys with enlargement of those organs, fatty degenera- 
tion, appoplexy, heart failure, gout, paralysis, etc. 

That poorely areated or oxj^genated blood unbalan- 
ces the brain the seat of the mind, and weakens every 
tissue in the body thus deranging the general working 
of the nervo- muscular portions of the human mecham- 
ism. 



HUMAN BODY. 195 

That to keep up a perfectly working system the sup- 
ply of blood must be free and uninterrupted and thor- 
oughly oxygenated. 

That our muscular system is nourished and kept up 
by food, but to keep it in operation, oxygen, a steady 
constant supply is required, which is furnished through 
the blood. 

That whenever that supply is interrupted by the ad - 
mixiure of alcohol with the blood which deprives it of 
its full power of oxygenation, it is plain, even for a 
layman to see how nature is interrupted and thwarted 
in her designs and fails in her mission. 

That in consequence of this trespass the removal of 
effete matter collecting on the tissues is interrupted and 
thus the tendency to fatty dengeration, especially after 
middle life. 

That this same cause also weakens or diminishes the 
necessory nutrition for the nerve substance and brain, 
thereby weakening those organs and at times, at least, 
the mind becomes unbalanced, the key to the great list 
of crimes, the records of which blacken the pages of 
our law libraries. 

That the universal effect of alcohol is deterioration 
af morals, beclouded intellects, mystified judgement, 
enfeebled reasoning powers and depleted physicial qual- 
ities which uman so man y of our race. 

That the liability to heredity is a fixed physiological 
law of nature, that the poorly born must suffer for t he 
sins of their parents, and that pain, disease, debility, 
suffering and brevity of existence are vociferous giants 
along the pathway of inherited evil. 

In the language of Horace Mann, "So universal and 
long continued have been the violations of the physical 



196 ALCOHOL ON THE 

laws, and so omnipresent is human suffering as a con- 
sequence, that the very tradition of a perfect state of 
health has died out from among men. We are wanted 
to the presence of debility and pain." 

We have also seen that the abnormal growths, those 
springs or strings of hardened albumen in the drunk • 
ard's blood, are, as declared by scientists, shoots spring- 
ing out from the red blood disks, and Dr. Harriman, 
unquestioned authority, says that in all his examina- 
tions (which were numerous) he never saw that pecu- 
liar kind of sprout except in the blood of a confirmed 
drunkard. What must be the condition of the off- 
spring from such a parentage ? 

That the brain receives a very large amount of blood 
to supply it with force for its great and important fun- 
ctional duties, and the badly fed brain helps to account 
for the mental depravity of the drunkard. 

That alcohol is alcohol w T hen taken into the stomach, 
is alcohol when it escapes, leaving no possible clue to 
any portion of it, worthy of note, having been uteliz- 
ed as food. 

That in its passage through the system it leaves its 
poisonous sting behind it in the form of Bright's dis- 
ease, diabetes, diseased liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, 
bladder, brain, etc., etc. 

That it is a trespassing emeny from the time it enters 
the organism until it is expelled, demonstrating none 
of the elementes that go to make up or repair any of 
the human viscera. 

That from the time it is swallowed the excretory 
organs of the body ; the lungs, kidneys and skin are 
hard at work throwing it out, and the whole surround- 
ing atmosphere of a drunkard is charged with its efflu- 



HUMAN BODY. 197 

vium and one almost experiences the disgusting pres- 
ence of the distillery, the drinker having made him- 
self so much of a traveling filtering pot. 

That alcohol is not a solvent of animal matter, but 
is a hardener and preservative of it, the fluid in use 
all over the civilized world for preserving anatomical 
specimens: tumors, amputated limbs, diseased speci- 
mens of all kinds, abnormal foetus, snakes, lizzards, 
toads, &c. &c. 

The fact was recorded a few years ago that a cask of 
snakes, toads, &c. preserved m alcohol was sent 
from the West to the Smithsonian institute at Wash- 
ington, and that on the way the sailors got on the 
scent of it, tapped the vessel and drank the liquor. 
We are not informed whether or not they subsequent- 
ly saw snakes but there must have been a strong 
flavor of snakehood. 

An English Admiral died away from home and his 
remains were shipped back in a cask of spirits and on 
the voyge it was discovered that the sailors were more 
than usually hilareous and intoxicated, when a thor- 
ough watch was instituted to ascertain if possible the 
source of their supplies. At length one of the laddies, 
a little too tipsey to keep a secret, said, "We have 
tapped the Admiral." 

Yet that c 1 ass of idiots and many of their betters 
will drink beer, whiskey, rum, or brandy to help their 
stomachs to digest a roast beef dinner. "Consistency 
thou art a jewel." 

That muscles are weakened by the influence of al- 
cohol as is readil3 T indicated by their appearance, as 
for instance a muscle taken from the leg or arm of one 
who was an abstainer from intoxicating drinks, is 



198 ALCOHOL ON THE 

found to be of a bright color, glossy and firm, while a 
corresponding one from the body of a drunkard is pale 
soft, flabby and of an oily appearance from the deposit 
of oil globules from the blood. 

That if the surgeon cut into the muscle of a dead 
drunkard the blade of his scalpel will be studded with 
little globules of grease, but if he were to cut into a 
corresponding muscle of one who had been an abstain- 
er the blade would be apparently bright and clean. 

That under many of these diseased conditions the 
heart sometimes suddenly ceases to act, and w r e are 
told that the poor victim died of heart failure, and 
that was no lie, for it failed most signally. 

That occasional drinking leads to habit, to tippling, 
to vice to disease, to irregularity of temper, to crime, 
to punishment, and often to death and hell. What a 
stock in trade to hand down to posterity, in face of the 
fact that physical and spiritual indenity go hand in 
hand with parent and child. 






ADDENDUM. 



200 ALCOHOL ON THE 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE TOBACCO EVIL. 

Long years ago a weed was discovered in Yucatan, 
which attracted great attention. Then it found a foot- 
hold in Spain, in the fifteenth century, where it culti- 
vated hordes of devotees. Then it presented its com- 
pliments to Portugal, where it found ready worshipers. 
Then the French Plenipotentiaries introduced it into 
Paris and it enslaved the French Empire in short or- 
der. After which Sir Walter Raleigh presented it to 
the favorable notice of England and that Kingdom 
soon found itself tight in the grasp of its fascination, 
and so it spread unt 1 'l the whole world was cursed with 
its influence while the devil sat laughing at its trium- 
phal march and the great mission work it was achiev- 
ing for his kingdom, and to-day it holds in its bonds 
more victims than all the other slaveries combined. 

They denominated this king of the earth, tobacco. 
Everywhere we go we meet pale-faced, peevish, iirit- 
able, hectic, dyspeptic men and boys with weakened 
nervous systems and failing hearts from their enslave- 
ment by tobacco. 

Of all men those leading sedentary lives should 
scrupulously avoid tobacco in all its forms. The best 
medical testimony in the world is agreed that us use 
produces all the above mentioned evils and vastly 
more, that it not onW enfeebles the nervous system 
but produces the same effect upon the muscular or- 
ganism also. That it causes dryness of the throat, 
bronchitis, ulceration, cancer of the lips, mouth, ton- 
gue and throat. 

Often has cancer of the lip come under 1113* observa- 



HUMAN BODY 201 

tion as a medical and surgical practitioner. And now I 
frequently see men, each with a blue spot on his lip 
where the stem of the loathsome old pipe rests, and I 
pity the poor souls, for I know the trouble and suffer- 
ing that is in store for them. 

It is a recorded historic fact that the Turkish nation 
is enfeebled and dwarfed by tobacco, thus accounting 
for their unfitness for, and failure as soldiers, always 
being defeated, their nerves and muscular systems en- 
ervated and they are physically unmanned. 

Of course there are those who use tobacco through 
life almost, and die in ripe old age, but that does not 
preclude the physiological fact that the maladies cited, 
and many more, are the direct outcome of the tobacco 
habit, and that shattered constitutions and premature 
death are daily results of the pernicious practice of to- 
bacco using. 

One noted writer says: "The chief evil in tobacco 
taken in any way, is that it leads myriads and myriads 
to the habitual use of ardent spirits and opium, and 
consequently to the ruin of soul, body and estate." 

That nearly all drinkers are tobacco users is an un- 
controvertible fact, yet it does not follow that all to- 
bacco users are drinkers of ardent spirits. But with 
the above cited opinion that tobacco is a broad step- 
ing -stone to the intoxicating cup I most fully concur. 

From a pathological standpoint, one of the most im- 
portant facts to be gathered upon the question of to- 
bacco using is from the pen of the great German Chem- 
ist, Iyiebig, who is of the highest authority. He says: 
"Smoking cigars is prejudicial to health, as much gas- 
eous carbon is injuriously inhaled that robs the sys- 
tem of its oxygen." 



202 ALCOHOL ON THE 

Oxygen being the life-giving property to the blood, 
is one of the most important elements in our physical 
economy, and the whole system is thrown into discord 
when its vital functions are trespassed upon, showing 
tobacco smoke to be a vile intruder of a most damag- 
ing character. 

The oxygen of the blood being thus interfered with 
the poison irritates and disturbs the general nervous 
system, particularly that of the heart, which accounts 
for smokers' irregular or unsteady heart action, palpi- 
tation, etc. 

Tobacco slaves are not infrequently called suddenly 
hence with what is termed tobacco heart, noticed in 
the obituary columns as heart failure. 

Surely they are in every sense of the word, heart 
failures, and tobacco caused the wrecks. 

Tobacco, instead of exciting and arousing the ac- 
tion of the heart, has the opposite effect, acting as a 
depressent. Its use has become a fashion, so to speak, 
and the human organism, though poisioned by its first 
reception, at length adapts itself to the depressing ef- 
fects of the poison, and in its limited use the early 
morbid manifestations ; then it promptly asserts its 
power over the victim, which is generally hard to 
overthrow. 

Alcohol and tobacco seem to be twin demons in 
their destructive works, quite apt to go hand in hand 
together, although one is a stimulant and excitant 
while the other is a narcotic or depressent. In fact 
nothing more rare could be found than a confirmed 
liquor drinker who did not also use tobacco. 

The rising generation is being thoroughly impreg- 
nated with and ruined by this world-wide tobacco 
habit. 



HUMAN BODY 203 

I do not write this article with the expectation that 
it will persuade many, if any, confirmed tobacco users 
to abandon the habit, but in the hope that it may 
arouse thought among the young and lead some at 
least to shun the loathesome results and bodily injuries 
which are so manifest among many of its devotees. 

While we constantly see around us men who have 
been slaves to the habit of tobacco-using for years, 
apparently in good health, we are too likely not to 
think of the other side of this revolting picture. We 
almost forget the terrible inroads it is making among 
the boys of to-day, dwarfing, depleating, stupefying 
the brain, enervating -the nervo-muscular system and 
impairing the intellect. We forget that the young 
are vastly more susceptible to narcotic poisoning than 
those of adult years. We forget that more than a 
score of diseases are traceable to the use of the weed. 

None so well as the medical man knows how many, 
many cases of ulcerated mouth, chronic bronchitis and 
epithelial cancer are caused by tobacco! The}' are 
common. 

With the declarations of many of our learned scien- 
tists I fully agree, judging from my own personal ob- 
servations in thirty years of medical practice, that 
very few, if an}', who smoke tobacco in youth, prior 
to the development of manhood, ever make vigorous 
men. Neither are they as intellectually brilliant. 

Tobacco poisons the blood, impairs digestion, de- 
presses the vital powers, weakens the heart, causes 
muscular tremor, thins the blood, increases salivary 
secretion, and weakens the glands thus secreting. 
When carried to excess by boys, it engenders nervous 
paroxisms, irritability of temper, (the latter being 



204 ALCOHOL ON THE 

very common with adults also), and not infrequently 
aberration of mind, and sometimes epileptic fits. 

The effects primarily manifested eventually become 
tolerated by adaptation of the system to them by con- 
tinued use of the poison though permanent pathologi- 
cal changes are all the time taking place. 

Were it not for the powerful excretory efforts of the 
lungs, kidneys and skin in throwing off much of the 
tobacco poison taken into the systam, death at a very 
early period would inevitably follow, and yet there is 
always enough in the system to produce untold mis- 
chief. 

The whole physical organisfn is enslaved by it. 
Men under its influence often make desperate efforts 
to abandon its use, when in many instances the} 7 be- 
come totally unmanned in the effort, unfitted for any 
business, nervous and almost wild ; to be calmed only 
by resorting again to the poison to which the system 
has accommodated itself and upon which, in its abnor- 
mal state, it has to depend for its accustomed nacotic- 
ism. 

All these things considered, is it not the bounden 
duty of parents in this fast day and age of the world 
to be particularly careful of the examples they set be- 
fore their children ? 

No parent should ever be seen by a child, tipping 
the wineglass or the beer mug or indulging in the use 
of tobacco in any form. Children are great imitators, 
and that which father or mother does is the end of the 
law with them, which is always looked upon as being 
just the right thing for them to do also. Parents 
should be particularly careful, God has placed those 
responsibilities in their hands and they have no moral 



HUMAN BODY 20.") 

right to indulge in anything that ma}' tempt their 
children to contract habits that will antagonize the 
law of God laid down for the government of the world, 
that ma}* injure health, ruin prospects, blight charac- 
ter, and dwarf manliness. 



♦ >*< 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
the tobacco evil. —continued. 

Oh, that young men could be educated up to the 
dangers of tobacco using. It is said that Jerusalem 
was destroyed because the instruction of the young 
was neglected. Emerson says, "'Tobacco, what a rude 
crowbar is that with which to pry into the delicate 
tissues of the brain." Tobacco lowers the spirits, 
weakens the memory, pollutes the breath, sallows the 
skin, impairs the stomach, irritates the nerves, bids 
defiance to purity and trespasses upon courtecy." 

Boys who smoke grow thin, irritable and pallid. 
The great scientist, Decaisen, says, "It lowers the in- 
telligence of young men." 

According to the testimony of teachers in public 
schools in various parts of the world, tobacco produces 
a very baneful effect upon students who are addicted 
to its use. In many of them, notably in the polytech- 
nic schools of France, cigarette smokers in comparison 
with abstainers are far behind in their studies, dull of 
comprehension, obtuse in intellect, and so marked is 
the difference that the authorities have prohibited the 



2)6 ALCOHOL ON THE 

use of tobacco in all government schools. A wise pro- 
vision. 

To persons of nervous and irritable constitutions, 
tobacco is unmistakably injurious. It sends its poi- 
sonous shafts into the nervous system by depleting or 
weakening Nature's required stock of cerebral or 
brain stimuli, leaving that organ short of its normal 
and necessary supply, its functions impaired and ren- 
dered less capable of being aroused to their natural 
activity. Thus the trembling hands of so many 
smokers. 

"Hyperasthesia or excessive sensibility, neuralgia, 
irritability and various hallucinations are among to- 
bacco smoker's comforts, and they often wonder why 
they feel so strangely," says Decaisen. 

Among the dangerous pathological effects of the 
weed* those manifested upon the nerves of the eye are 
common, impairing the organs of vision in the form 
of conjunctvetisor opthalmia, diplopia or double vision 
and amaurosis or diminutive sight, often atf ended 
with vertigo. 

Persons addicted to nervous derangements and those 
predisposed to dyspepsia or hypochondriasis pay a 
large bonus for the pleasure they derive from smok- 
ing. Yet it is computed that 1.500.000 acres of the 
most productive of earth's surface is poluted in raising- 
tobacco. 

Saying nothing of the disgusting and filthy habit of 
smoking one would think its pathological results are 
enough to drive the practice out of existence* Though 
not looked upon by the casual observer to be harmful, 
tobacco is nevertheless extremely damaging to the 
human organism. By its depressing effect upon the 



HUMAN BODY. 207 

heart we can readily account for so mnch nervous irri- 
tability as exists among the slaves to its use. 

Of all the bondages of man, contracted by his own 
habits, that of tobacco using is the most difficult to 
throw off, not excepting that of opium even. 

While to rid one's self of the liquor habit is painful- 
ly difficult, that of tobacco is more so. They seem to 
be twin demons in the devil's family, closely allied in 
their trespasses upon the human economy, although 
one excites and the other depresses certain component 
parts of the human organism. Its most alarming in : 
roads in society are fearfully manifested among the 
boys of to-da}\ In many of the schools of this and 
other lands, it is found that young men addicted to 
the habit of 

CIGARETTE SMOKING 

are notably behind in all their studies, slow of com- 
prehension and doltish in intellect. It weakens the 
nervo-mental and muscular powers and dwarfs intel- 
lect. Not only that, but often cuts short manly de- 
velopment by robbing the blood of its requisite amount 
of oxygen. 

In ever} 7 instance it over-taxes the excretory or- 
gans in throwing off the poison from the system 
through the lungs, skin, kidneys, etc. 

The use of cigarettes in our large towns and cities 
is becoming very alarming, especially so, as tobacco 
obstructs the development of body and mind. In the 
young it is particularly marked in the way of mental 
weakness and muscular debility. 

The cigarette said, " I am not much of a mathamati- 
cian, but I can add to a man's nervous troubles, sub- 
tract from his physical energy, multiply his aches and 



208 ALCOHOL ON THE 

pains, and divide his mental powers, and I can take 
interest from his work and discount his chances of 
success." (Do not know the author's name.) 

Boys indulge almost exclusively in cigarettes, and 
in addition to the poisonous effects of tobacco, they 
are subjected to the irritating smoke of the paper cov- 
ers, which is very injurious to the lungs. 

One of our New York Oculists has said that the 
greatest enemy to the eye of young men is the cigar- 
ette. Not long since a disease made its appearance 
among smokers which has proven itself a dangerous 
and formidable one, and some of the ablest of our 
medical fraternity investigated thoroughly for some 
time and finally traced it to cigarettes. It is now 
known as the "cigarette eye," and can be cured only 
by long and continued treatment. 

Its symptoms are a dimness of sight, a film-like 
formation over the eye-ball, which appears and disap- 
pears at intervals. 

One of the investigating ph3 T sicians had a cigarette 
analyzed, and found the startling result which has 
been many times since verified by other chemists, that 
the tobacco was found to be strongly impregnated 
with opium; while the wrapper, which was warranted 
to be rice paper, was proven to be the most ordinary 
quality of paper, whitened with arsenic, the two 
poisons combined being present in sufficient quanti- 
ties to create in the smoker the habit of using opium 
without his being aware of it, and which craving can 
only be satisfied by the incessant use of cigarettes. 

Cigarette smoking is not confined to boys alone, but 
adults are being entrapped in the same snare. A man 
living in Brooklyn, N. Y. twenty-seven years of age 



HUMAN BODY 209 

who had a wife and one child, contracted the habit of 
cigarette smoking and became a bounden slave to it, 
smoking on an average of one hundred cigarettes each 
day. Physicians warned him of the danger, his wife 
entreated him to brake off the habit, but his will pow- 
er was to much weakened to carry any such resolution 
into effect. 

On Sunday December 25th, 1901, while reading a 
paper, and puffing at a cigarettee he was taken sud- 
denly ill. A call was at once sent to a hospital and the 
summons was immediately answered by a physician 
who found the man w r as suffering from apoplexy, and 
hastened with him to the hospital. When he recov- 
ered to consciousness he informed the House Surgeon 
of his smoking habit. But he could not be saved and 

on Januar}' 2d he died. 

The autopsy revealed the presence of a clot of blood 
within the brain because of the weakened condition of 
the blood vessels of that organ, caused by smoking. 
His whole system was found to be impregnated with 
nicotine. Thousands more are on the same road to 
untimely deaths from cigarette smoking. 

So direful have been the results of smoking among 
boys in Norway that a law has been passed forbidding 
the sale of the weed to any boy not over sixteen years 
of age, without a written order from some adult rela- 
tive or his employer. 

Foreign tourists make themselves liable to prosecu- 
tion under the law if they offer cigarettes, cigars and 
pipes seen in use by boys on the public streets. 

The law of nature in the young of steady uninter- 
rupted growth. An y interference with the functional 
offices of the heart or stomach, thus obstructing the 



210 ALCOHOL ON THE 

perfect oxydation of the blood, which tobacco does in 
a marked degree, must of necessity greatly interrupt 
nature's steady growth and developement as we so 
constantly observe in the waifs of to-day. 

The interference with nature's assimilation of food 
and air deranges the nervous system, leading to irriit- 
ability, peevishness, lack of energy, insomnia, some- 
times epilepsy and other nervous maladies. 

It is an indisputable fact that the thirst produced 
by tobacco smoking leads myriods of boys to drinking 
beer, from that to stronger drinks by which time, as a 
rule, their doom is sealed. Boys not yet out of short 
pants are daily seen strutting about the streets puffing 
away at loathsome cigarettes. 

What other narcotics they are breathing into their 
systems which added to tht cheap tobacco of the cigar- 
ette can only be told by chemical analysis. Many of 
these little lads must of necessity, if they follow up 
their smoking habits, become feeble minded. 

The nicotine they are introducing into their systems 
is a deadly poison and must, in the naturel course of 
events, dwarf the development of mind and body to 
a greater or less degree. For instance, take a single 
cigarette or its equivalent of tobacco, and macerate it 
for a short time in a little w r arm water, enough to 
cover it nicely and inject a small quantity of the liquid 
under the skin of a cat, the animal will soon be thrown 
into convulsions, and in a very few minutes will die. 

Dr.* Kostral, superintending pl^sician to an im- 
mense State tobacco establishment near Vienna, Aus- 
tria, published an account of the condition of those 
employed in the great manufactory, consisting of 1,942 
men, women, boys and girls, ages ranging from 13 to 



HUMAN BODY 211 

56 years. The establishment was well ventilated, yet 
the air they breathed was more or less pregnated with 
tobacco dust and nicotine, which was very injurious 
in its effects, especially upon the younger ones, a 
great man}- of whom died, while man}' more were ill 
from the poisonous effects of the weed. 

Out of one hundred boys below the age of 16, sev- 
enty-two were taken ill, some with nervous derange- 
ments, some with congestion of the brain, others with 
palpitation of the heart, some with inflamation of the 
stomach or bowels, some with inflamed eyes, some 
with insomnia, etc., etc. 

In addition to the physical damages consequent up- 
on the tobacco habit, it is one of the most fruitful 
sources of evil, leading to vicious associations with 
other boys. They encourage each other in the pernic- 
ious practices following the habit. 

In country towns the cigarette habit calls to its com- 
panionship the use of cider, while in the cities beer is 
resorted to. One or the other, or both are almost sure 
to be found hand in hand with the cigarette among 
boys and young men. 

Cider, which is strongly impregnated with alcohol is 
one of the most insidious intoxicants in the whole cat- 
alogue of intoxicating beverages. It is to the young 
a gav deceiver, indulged in as a simple, harmless 
drink while all the time it is full of the devil in dis- 
guise. It makes many drunkards, and a cider drunk- 
ard is the meanest, most crabbed and disagreeable of 
all inebriates. 

Josh Billings once said, "Cider may be a good tem- 
perance drink, but I can get so drunk on. it that I can't 
tell one of the ten commandments from the by-laws of 
a base-ball club." 



212 ALCOHOL ON THE 

Thousands of young men robbed of respectibility, 
purity and clean characters are led into the pit of 
darkness by tobacco, cider and beer, as I previously 
said. 

All tobacco users are by no manner of means addic- 
ted to the intoxicating cup, but those who are habit- 
ual liquor drinkers and do not use tobacco are very 
rare specimens of humanity. 

The use of tobacco is, at least, a dangerous open 
doorway to the worship of the bottle. Beware young 
man ere the pit of degerdation and drunkenness swal- 
lows you up. 

Ili the language of Tom Hood: "Oh God that bread 
should be so dear and flesh and blood so cheap." 



JUL 141903 



